


Don't Stop Beating

by shadowscribe



Series: Drown Me In Love [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Bianca is a bitch, Cullen is sweeter than two tons of taffy, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Vaginal Sex, Varric totally deserves better, discussions about polyamory, happier times, mention of previous pregnancy loss, mostly canon compliant, this is not a How To manual, well shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-23 00:40:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8307161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowscribe/pseuds/shadowscribe
Summary: Three months after the death of her daughter, Varric receives a letter that sends the Inquisitor back into the field.





	1. Even Professional Liars Have Bad Days

Winter in the Frostbacks is relentless. From beginning to end it is nothing but blizzards broken up by days of gently falling snow and the occasional sunny afternoon. It is the work of dozens of mages, daily, to clear the road between Skyhold and the little trading post that has popped into existence halfway down the mountainside at the base of the twisting, narrow road that leads up to the keep. Now that they’re here, safe in Skyhold, and the weather and piled up snow double as several extra layers of defense against encroaching enemies Catheryn can appreciate it. She can stand on her balcony and look out at the snow crusted peaks in the gently drifting snow and marvel at the frozen, breathtaking beauty that surrounds her.

Still, it had sucked absolute ass to try and find the place in the dead of winter.

 Catheryn rubs at her arms and sucks in a deep breath, feeling it all the way down to the bottom of her lungs. The cold is a shock to her system, as bracing and sharp as a slap across her face, centering her in the _here_ and _now_ – a small mercy that she is eternally grateful for. It’s too easy to slip away, to drown in a sudden attack of grief or, worse yet, drift off into a soothing black nothingness.  In the days – weeks, really – immediately following the loss of her daughter it had been all she could do to remember how to be a person. It took every ounce of effort she could summon to do more than lay in her bed and surround herself with the lodestones of warm bodies, their touch the only thing that could keep the Nightmare’s mocking voice from itching around the inside of her skull. Her friends – her advisors, her inner circle – they were understanding as she grit her teeth and made herself go back to work. How could they not be? They knew her as no one else, loved her in each of their own ways. Indeed, two had been DJ’s father: one in body and one is spirit.

Others had not been nearly so understanding but Leliana, Josephine, and even Vivienne have been unsurprisingly good at running interference. For those that needed a little more convincing… well. Thom will be the first to acknowledge that Cullen has a mean right hook. They don’t tell her the handful of times that it happens but she knows anyway, reading it in the protective set of Cullen’s jaw and the broken skin across his knuckles that she heals without a word. And if the Chargers get into more bar fights than normal and Sera blatantly sets a visiting Orlesian chevalier on fire via arrow from tavern’s rooftop then she overlooks it and chalks it up to the winter weather.

The mind numbing, crippling, bring-her-to-her-knees-in-the-middle-of-the-war-room attacks of grief are fewer and fewer these days and she can’t decide whether she is relieved or whether she hates it. In all honesty, perhaps both. The grief is still there. The size of it has not shrunk, the regret and the sorrow over what-might-have-been is as endless as the night it was born but it is no longer fresh. She has, despite a surety otherwise, grown accustomed to it – just like she grew used to having magic and grew used to living in a Circle instead of with her parents. Just like she has grown accustomed to having the Anchor stitched into the flesh of her palm, feeling it jump and bite and pull when a rift is near. 

Catheryn hates it. She hates that the premature birth and death of her daughter is becoming another callus in her life.

Likewise, she is relived. She just wants to be herself again. She wants to laugh at Varric’s stories and giggle over badly written romance with Cassandra. She wants to gossip with Josephine and Leliana over tea. She wants to participate in the dizzying rush that is a discussion on magical theory with Dorian and Solas – an event that despite her breadth of knowledge leaves her giddy and breathless at the depths of theirs. She wants rare stolen nights of laughter and too many drinks over Wicked Grace.

More than anything else Catheryn is so very, very tired of feeling like she is about to shatter into a million pieces at the slightest provocation. She is so fucking tired of being sad.

“Maker’s breath! Catheryn, it’s freezing out here!” Cullen is pulling his coat off of his shoulders before she even fully registers his presence.

“I didn’t notice,” she tells him truthfully as he wraps the coat around her and rubs at her arms.

“You didn’t _notice_?” he repeats, staring at her. “Your lips are blue! You’re in nothing but leggings and a shirt!”

“Cullen… I’m a mage,” she mutters fondly, wiggling her fingers under his nose. His coat does feel nice though, she’ll concede that. It’s the original one. The one that he’d worn every day since she’d met him until he’d sent it with her to Emprise du Lion. The replacement that Josephine had had made for him while she had been away is warm and comfortable but it’s not the real deal. They both prefer the real deal. “I’m not going to freeze to death.”

A shadow crosses over his eyes. “You nearly did,” he whispers, “after Haven.” His tug is soft but insistent and she yields, letting him pull her into his arms.

“This isn’t then. I haven’t spent a day buried beneath an avalanche and walking through a blizzard,” she reminds him as she rests her head on his chest. His lips brush the top of her head and it’s like the final tumbler of a lock falling into place. This, _this_ is her safe place. “Though I spent the entire afternoon with Lord Cyril and Josephine, which, to be honest, is almost worst.”

“Lord Cyril…? Isn’t he…”

“…Gaspard’s liaison and madly in love – or at least lust – with you,”  Catheryn finishes dryly. “It’s very hard to keep him on track. He keeps asking to ‘ _inspect the troops_ ’…”

“…Maker’s breath…”

“… and if it wouldn’t better if you joined us. It wouldn’t,” she adds swiftly, cutting off the question she can feel rising in his chest. “If you were in the same room not only would we get absolutely _nothing_ done but I would undoubtedly be forced to take drastic measures to keep his paws off of you. Gaspard probably wouldn’t care if I electrocuted his representative for being a handsy bastard but the idea makes Josephine squeamish.”

“Possessive, are you?” Cullen huffs even though he knows the answer.

“Yes.” Catheryn doesn’t even bother to deny it. Maybe it’s a by-product of being raised in a Circle or maybe it’s simply an innate character flaw but no one has complained about it yet. On the contrary –

“You have no idea how many times I have gotten on my knees and thanked the Maker for that,” Cullen mutters between peppering light kisses to her hair before adding firmly, “But you are shivering and I am now without a coat so, mage or not, we’re going inside.” Since even with her magic humming softly under her skin she can no longer feel her toes – a fact that Cullen’s comments have now made her aware of – she goes without comment, shutting the door behind them.

Cullen shakes his head in a fair imitation of a wet dog as he walks through their room in an effort to clear the snowflakes from his hair and clothes but the damage is done. His hair, carefully styled and slicked into submission every morning before he leaves their quarters, has broken free of its product induced neatness and turned into an adorable riot of golden curls. Cullen notices as he passes the mirror by the wardrobe and curses as he begins to strip out of his armor in neat, familiar movements.

Catheryn smiles and snuggles further down into the fur lined collar of the coat, content to simply stand and watch as he prowls around the room in nothing but his breeches and a loose cotton undershirt, fingers trailing over their furniture in unconscious possession. Once, the Inquisitor’s chambers had been the height of interior design with graceful, elegant pieces chosen from all over Thedas and pulled together in homage to the person who was – _is_ – supposed to save the world. It had been beautiful and pristine, like a delicate piece of art, and Catheryn had hated it. It had possessed no life, no _spark_ and everything – except the bed – had been uncomfortable.

In one of her more dramatic fits of grief - likely spurned on by the fact that her sleeping companions kept falling out of her too small bed instead of snuggling with her like they were supposed to – she’d dragged all the furniture out onto the balcony – with Bull’s gleeful help, of course – and lit it all on fire. There is still a scorch mark on the stone that makes her grin every time she sees it.

Now the room is decorated much more to her tastes. The furniture is actually comfortable and the vaulted, cool space is grounded by the thick, brightly colored rugs that cover the stone floor. Her desk is actually big enough to spread out and work at – big enough for multiple people to work at, which is helpful as she rarely works alone, and there are enough bookcases lining the walls that Dorian drools a little every time he’s here. The bed, custom made and special ordered from some place in Val Royeux, is not only comfortable but also big enough to host an orgy made up entirely of Qunari. Her quarters are no longer a show piece of finery and richness but a _home_ in which she sees the reflections of all those whom she loves.

“Warm enough?”

Catheryn blinks and finds that he’s right there in front of her. “If I say no will you hold me?”

He smiles and it lights up his face in a way that rivals the sun in the sky. Nearly three years since she first saw him smile and it’s still one of the most beautiful things she’s ever seen. “Of course,” he rumbles and slides his hands beneath his coat, drawing her flush against his front. It’s easy to tilt her head up so that their breaths mingle and lips brush together in a slow, tender motion. 

“I missed you,” she whispers against his lips and he tips his head to the side.

“I’m right here,” he replies, cupping his hand around the curve of her jaw. “I’m not going anywhere.” And though her heart sings at the declaration, part of her wants to growl because for once – for _once_! – that is not actually what she meant.  

Catheryn Trevelyan is no stranger to seducing Templars. She just never thought she’d have to seduce one that is already in her bed.

“Fuck it,” she mutters under her breath and surges upward, threading her hands through Cullen’s curls and yanking his lips down to hers. For a moment his mouth is motionless against hers, shocked at the sudden assault. So she does the only thing she can think of from this position to key him into the program. She bites him.

“ _Maker’s breath_ ,” he mutters.

He kisses her like a man starved, descending on her lips with a ferocity that sucks all the air from her lungs. Catheryn groans and opens her mouth to him, beckoning him in with teasing little flicks of her tongue. A growl rumbles beneath her fingertips and she twists them in the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer. Fingers tangling in her hair, Cullen nips at her lower lip and slides his tongue in alongside hers.  He tastes a bit of garlic and beef but also of peppermint and chamomile from the tea he's been drinking. Mostly, he just tastes like _Cullen_ and it is the best taste in the world. And she’s the Inquisitor so she can totally make a formal declaration on that matter.

She’s not even aware that they’re moving until Cullen hits the settee and goes down. “Catheryn…” he growls, half in demand, half in warning as he sprawls across the furniture and stares up at her. Chest heaving, lips swollen and slick, his face is flushed with desire, the molten gold bubbling with heat as he drags his gaze from her face and on down her form.

The sound of her name in his mouth, wet and desperate, is enough to make frantic little noises whine in her throat as she straddles his lap, rocking against him in a movement that makes him growl and clutch at her hips. He’s thick and hot beneath her, his erection a hard line nudging at the inside of her thigh. Close, so close, but so, so far from where she wants him. “Cullen, _please_.”

Maker, Creators, and all other absent gods in the world she is not above begging.

Cullen’s fingers are gentle as they slip beneath the hem of her tunic, the callused fingertips dragging against the soft skin of her stomach. “Are you sure?” he asks. “I don’t want to do anything before you’re ready. We can wait.”

Catheryn groans softly, pressing her forehead to his. “It’s been three months.”

“I would wait three decades if that is what you needed.” He smiles at her, a quick little quirk of the corner of his mouth that pulls at the scar bisecting his upper lip. Between the words and the smile she doesn’t stand a chance. Catheryn can feel her sexually frustrated heart turning into a great big puddle of goo in the middle of her chest.

“Cullen…” she shakes her head and opts for actions instead of words.  Wrapping her arms around his neck she weaves her fingers through his curls and peppers his face with kisses. He lets her, for a moment, before catching her lips with his own.

“I don’t want you to rush back into this because you think that you must. I don’t want to be a chore or a task that you must accomplish,” he admits. It is a quiet, fearful thing.

“Never,” she vows fiercely, clutching his face between her hands and staring into his eyes. After all they have been through together that he might doubt what he means to her is ridiculous – and devastating. “You will never be a _chore_ ,” she spits and if her grip gets any tighter she’ll leave bruises on his jaw but she can’t make herself relax, can’t make herself let go. She can’t lose him. It will break her, utterly and completely. “I want you,” she growls. “I want you because I love you. I want you because you’re _mine_. I want you because being with you doesn’t fix me but makes me feel like I don’t need to be fixed. I want you because you’re gorgeous and wonderful and kind. _I want you, Cullen_.” She turns her lips into the curve of her ear, close enough that she can feel the heat of her own breath brushing against her face. “Is that enough for you?”

“Maker’s breath… _yes_ ,” Cullen groans and then he’s got his hands around her, underneath her tunic, trailing across her skin with touches that make the blood in her veins bubble and little static bursts break across her skin.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she breathes softly, the pinching roll of his fingers around her nipple enough to tear her away from the mark she is sucking in to the curve of his neck. “Don’t stop… don’t…”

A high sharp whistle pierces the air and before she can hardly register the noise Cullen’s pulled her off his lap and shoved her behind him, hand reaching underneath the settee for the short sword he keeps stashed there.

“Maker’s breath…” he growls and a familiar chuckle echoes through the space followed by methodical applause.

“Good for you, Curly,” drawls Varric as she tips her head enough to catch a glimpse of the dwarf standing at the top of the staircase. He looks amused.  “Hey Kitten,” he adds with a smirk. “Sorry to interrupt but I don’t think Curly or Hero would let me keep my head if I saw… _things_.”

Cullen’s growl is enough to make Varric take a step backward, brandishing his hands before him in a placating gesture. “Whoa there... I said if. _If_ ,” he stresses pointedly. “I saw shit. Well, no, that’s a lie. I saw nothing more than I’ve seen at least a dozen times before because you’re both discreet but not _that_ discreet…” Catheryn grabs at the back of Cullen’s breeches as he tries to take a step forward. “And really, Kitten and I have roughed it for weeks on end so there’s not a whole lot of mystery left…”

“Not helping, Varric,” Catheryn mutters as she gives Cullen’s leg a light smack. “Let me up.” Cullen doesn’t. In fact he shifts so that she’s completely shielded from view again. “Really?” she mutters to herself but she can’t stop the warmth that spreads through her chest.

“What do you want?” he snaps instead and really, given that half a second earlier there was still a growl rumbling around in his chest he sounds remarkably calm. She doesn’t really trust it. Varric doesn’t either. Considering Cullen still has a naked sword in his hand that is probably wise of him. Cullen doesn’t like be surprised. He likes it even less when he’s let his guard down. He likes it least of all when _she_ is vulnerable too.

“I just thought you might like to know that I’ve found the main source of Corypheus’ red lyrium.”

And that most definitely gets their attention.

“Where?” Catheryn asks as she shoves Cullen away, moving him just enough that she can swing her legs over the edge of the settee and stand up. For the moment her sexual frustration is forgotten in the rush of finally, Maker, _finally_ being able to eradicate this evil that has been haunting her nightmares – waking and sleeping. “Who?” she corrects, face pinching as she remembers what she had seen in Redcliffe and later found in Emprise du Lion.

Varric shakes his head. “Not who,” he promises fiercely, with a wincing look that tells her he understands. “The legitimate origin point – the spot where they are mining it from the earth – is a thaig inside Valammar.”

 Catheryn is up and moving before he finishes speaking, going up on her tip toes to reach a large scroll of parchment shoved on the top shelf of the bookcase nearest her desk. “Show me,” she commands as she spreads the map, weighing it down with books and bottles. It’s not as big as the monstrosity that they have covering the war table but it’s at least half a foot larger than her desk in all directions.

“The nearest entrance is here, in the Hinterlands, not far from our camp by the lake,” Varric stabs his finger into the middle of western Ferelden.

 “Really?” Cullen is as surprised as Catheryn feels. “Our scouts have been over that area a thousand times.”

 “I know.” Varric takes a deep breath and looks at her, his mouth pressed in an unhappy line. “You remember when we cleaned out that Carta operation?”

It takes her a moment but then she does. It’d been after they’d cleared out the mercenaries that had made themselves a den in that abandoned villa in the very outreaches of the Hinterlands. It’d been a key dropped on the floor during the fighting and a stray bit of parchment sitting on a table that had led them there, led them to a small company of Carta who had been attempting to set up a lyrium mining operation. “Son of a bitch,” she growls, slamming her palm onto the desk. “There? It was fucking _there_ the whole time?” She stares at the map, the careful black ink of the cartographer half covered with her own notes and symbols, the last three years of her life scrawled in quests, camps, and missions across its surface.  There at the upper lake, just above a notation that reads _Recruited Warden Blackwall_ is a list: _Attempted Carta mine, Royal Elfroot, Iron deposits._

 _So close_ , she thinks as she stares, _so fucking close_. How had she been that close and not realized it? How had she not _known_? Red lyrium is worse than darkspawn – it’s a discordance ripping the air and the Fade that she can taste like thick syrup stuck to the back of her throat, an anomaly that the whole of creation rebels against. Even then, in the early days before Haven fell, how had she not been able to find it? How much could she have prevented? How many lives could she have saved if she’d just delved further? Would the Templars have been lost? Would Haven have been destroyed? Would all of this already be over and done with?

“… Catheryn?”  Cullen’s touch is gentle as he pries her fingers open, soothing out the fist that she has clenched so tightly that little scarlet beads of blood are dripping down onto the map. “Breathe, love, _breathe_.” The great inward suck of air is loud enough that she can hear it over the rushing of her blood in her ears. “Breathe,” Cullen prompts again and she obeys until her chest isn’t so tight and the hazy black spots in front of her eyes begin to fade away.

“…fine,” she gasps out as she Varric wordlessly wraps a small strip of cloth bandaging around her hand. “I’ll be fine.”

“Sure you will, Kitten,” he murmurs.

“I _will_ ,” she repeats more firmly, glaring at him. When the dwarf drops his gaze with a shrug she turns her glare to the map. “I just…” she sighs, the biting edge of her anger and the despair of what-might-have-been leaking away beneath Cullen’s touch at her back. “I can’t help but wonder what would have been different if we’d found it the first time. Would I have been able to save Sahrnia? Therinfal Redoubt? Haven?”

“Those aren’t on you,” Cullen chides sharply. “None of those are your fault.” His grip on her upper arms is nearly tight enough to be painful. She welcomes it, head tipping back against his chest as she grounds herself in his living, breathing presence.

“Not my fault, perhaps,” she agrees, “but I might have prevented them anyway.”

 Varric grimaces. “You can’t save everyone. Things don’t work that way, not even in stories.”

“Watch me try,” she mutters rebelliously and Varric laughs, a great barking chuckle that fills the vaulted space, and she finds herself smiling in response. He’s right, of course, and she knows that he’s right but that doesn’t mean she has to lie down and take it. “Provided that we don’t wake up to a blizzard we can leave in the morning. There’s nothing on my schedule that is more important than this.” Josephine probably won’t be happy to reschedule the various meetings she has with ambassadors and merchants but she’ll understand. Anything short of Corypheus knocking on Skyhold’s door or Samson announcing himself in the Great Hall can wait until the red lyrium is taken care of.

Cullen shifts a little, leaning over her shoulder to trace their likely route with his finger. “Leliana has been looking for this information for the better part of a year and hasn’t found it. How reliable is your source?”

Varric hesitates for a moment, his fingers scratching at his exposed chest hair. It’s a nervous tic of his, the equivalent of Cullen’s Thedas-wide recognized neck rub.  “Very,” he finally replies. “Bianca sent me the information.” Catheryn feels her eyebrows climb clear off the top of her head. She’s not stupid. The amount of time she and Varric have spent talking about his crossbow – everything from how it looks to where he found it (at last count she’s heard three different stories about its origins) – is borderline ridiculous. Talking about Bianca, among other things, is what kept her from a full blown panic attack on the day they met, Varric’s easy conversation and respect keeping her head in the game as they fought their way to the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

Suffice it to say, she knows enough. Enough to know that the beauty of a weapon had been a gift and that he is more than willing to lie – and more – to keep the giver anonymous and safe. Enough to draw her own conclusions of how the crossbow had got her name.  Enough to know that Varric is aware of every thought flitting through her head as she watches him.

“Maker’s breath, Varric, if you don’t want to tell me that’s fine. Just don’t expect me to believe that your crossbow…”

“…not his crossbow,” Catheryn interrupts, staring at her friend as shuffles nervously on his feet. “The woman his crossbow is named for.” Varric jerks his head in assent.

“She’s… an old friend,” he finally explains, dropping his gaze back to the map. “And she wouldn’t steer us wrong. Not with this shit. But she’s… impetuous. The main reason I interrupted is because she’s decided that she needs to help with… this.” He motions at the map. “It’s too dangerous for her to come to Skyhold but she’s already left Val Royeux and writes that she’ll wait for us in Valammar.” The downward twist of his lips tells Catheryn exactly what he thinks of _that_ – though which part, exactly, he disproves of she’s not sure.

“Doesn’t do things by halves, does she?” Catheryn comments instead, shoving back all the questions that are trying to do a swan dive off of her tongue.

“No, she doesn’t,” Varric says with a huff of amused laughter, but there’s something else there, something sad and bitter hanging around the corner of his eyes and tugging at his lips. He doesn’t say though so Catheryn doesn’t ask and she bites back the instinctive apology that rises in her chest.

“I know you’ll be in a hurry to get there, but do you think you could spare an extra day on the trip out?” Cullen’s quiet, almost reluctant, question snaps Catheryn back into the room and away from her thoughts about the mysterious Bianca. 

She blinks and twists to look at him. He’s still got his finger on the map, tracing the route between Skyhold and the Hinterlands. “… probably, but I'd rather just get it over and done with,” she says slowly, watching. “Why?”

A faint blush of pink fills his cheek and he ducks his head away, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I… um. I’ve been meaning to take you away for a few days. I figured you wouldn’t mind getting out of Skyhold for a little bit and there’s someplace I’ve wanted to show you. I was hoping to go at the end of the week but with this…” he clears his throat. “By the time you get back though we’ll need to start seriously thinking about our assault on the Arbor Wilds.”

Catheryn swallows. The Arbor Wilds, where they’re hoping to have their final confrontation with Corypheus’ forces.  The Arbor Wilds, where – if they’re lucky – they might have their final confrontation with Corypheus himself. Truthfully, where _she_ might have a final confrontation with the blighted magister, because she knows that between the Anchor and everything else she’s done to piss him off that he’s going to aim himself straight at her and her alone. She doesn’t expect to survive. She just hopes to take him with her when she goes.

“I was thinking that I might join you for part of the journey to the camp and if we take a day…” Cullen sighs and shakes his head. “No. Maker’s breath, I’m sorry. This is important and…”

It passes silently and unspoken between them, all these thoughts that are flying through her head. She’s never spoken openly of her expected demise but Cullen knows. They keep no secrets from each other. So the ‘ _I want it to just be us, just once’_ goes unsaid but she hears it anyway.

She should say no. She should refuse. A day... a day could mean a hundred lives, a thousand, or it could mean none. But she doesn't know. But his quiet words, spoken and unspoken, are true as well. If she doesn't take the time now when will she possibly have it again?

"We'll have to wait until Bianca gets there," Varric puts in mildly. "She's the one that knows the way."

Catheryn swallows.

“Sure,” she agrees hoarsely, blinking back the sudden swell of tears that pricks at her eyes. The gratitude in his eyes is so heavy that she would have sagged beneath it were it not for his hand wrapping around her waist. He presses gently and she goes willingly, curling against his chest as he presses his lips to the top of her head.

“I’m going to steal this shit for a book, just so you’re aware,” Varric warns lightly, a flat out smirk spreading his lips and lighting up his eyes as she glares at him. “Cassandra will sigh very dramatically over it.”

“You’re not putting us in one of your bloody books,” Cullen growls.

“You can run it past her on the way out,” Catheryn warns. “If we’re going to be messing around with red lyrium I want someone who is immune to it in the party.”

“So me and Seeker – who else?” Catheryn wrinkles her nose in thought. Not Dorian, because trudging through the snow for a week and then having to poke around underground for Maker-knows-how-long is just a recipe for trouble where the warm blooded mage is concerned. Not Sera because after Emprise she had pointedly asked to not be involved in missions that require her to be around so much of that ‘bloody red shite’. Cole could hear the lyrium so he is probably a good…

“…Thom.” Cullen’s voice breaks through her thoughts and makes her shiver. It’s his Commander’s voice. The one he uses when he expects to be obeyed. “Take Thom with you.”

“… or Tiny. He’s a good match if we run into any alpha darkspawn,” Varric counters smoothly, catching Cullen’s gaze with a look of his own that she can’t quite decipher. “The Kid’s a good lyrium hound or Chuckles is full of all sorts of tricks that might be useful…”

Cullen tilts his head, nothing but calm on his face. “Of course. Whoever will be the most beneficial to the mission.” There’s something else though, something that moves silently beneath them that hits Varric like the strike of lightning, making his eyes widen almost comically.

She watches them for one beat and then another and then, “Varric, Cassandra, and Thom,” she acknowledges, well aware of the vibrant duality of anticipation and fear that is coiling through her gut at her words.

Thom Rainier, formally known to her as Warden Gordon Blackwall: ex –Orlesian military Captain, pardoned murderer, exemplary warrior, stalwart companion, honorable man, and former lover to the Herald of Andraste and the biological father of her deceased child.  Once they had been close, not just lovers but intimate friends as well. But then had left the Inquisition, left _her_ and his mask of Blackwall behind to save a man who had once followed his command. He had taken up his own name again and stepped up to the gallows, had done the right thing, and had told her _nothing_. Eight months later and she still wakes in the middle of the night, screaming and crying with her heart thundering in her chest and tears streaming down her face from nightmares where she has arrived too late to save him from the noose.

Though things have greatly improved in the past three months she would be lying her face off if she tried to claim that her relationship with the older man is not strained. Because it is. It doesn’t matter that he shares her bed half the time, helping Cullen ground her amidst the nightmares. It matters, perhaps more than it should, that she can’t look at him without reliving that heart stopping moment of seeing him walk across the gallows, or the instant of blinding, consuming rage when she had discovered that he had murdered children. It matters because despite what he has done she still loves him. Loves him in a dizzying rush of emotions that blindside her every time she looks at him – just like they did the very first time she laid eyes on him. Loves him with the same ferocity and desire that she does Cullen, even if the exact nuances of the emotions are slightly varied.

She loves him and she's lost him and it fucking hurts.

Cullen smiles at her, the calm on his face melting away to genuine nervous pleasure. Catheryn’s not sure how to interpret that.

Varric clears his throat meaningfully. “Well, then… I’ll just go share the joyous news with Hero and Seeker. I’ll let you guys break things to Ruffles.” He pauses, looking meaningfully between the two of them. “Do you need me to come back in a little bit? Or send for one of the others?”

Catheryn smiles at his concern. “I’ll be fine,” she reassures gently.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” the dwarf encourages with a wink that makes Cullen turn bright red. It’s not until Varric is at the top of the stairs that something occurs to Catheryn.

 _Stupid,_ she tells herself. _You’re slipping._

“Varric?” He pauses at the sound of her voice and turns to peer over his shoulder at her. “Do _you_ need to come back later?”

The smile on his face is supposed to be reassuring, as is the “Nah, Kitten, I’ll be fine. Enjoy the rest of your evening!” but Catheryn doesn’t buy it.

Varric is an expert storyteller but, all things considered, he’s not a very good liar.


	2. Happier Times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm 900% certain that my teeth rotted out of my mouth when I wrote this.  
> I have no regrets.

Catheryn likes Ferelden.  

The rest of the world can say what it likes about Ferelden. Maker knows that between Skyhold’s technical location in Ferelden and Cullen’s very obvious Ferelden-ness she’s had to endure more than a reasonable amount of jokes, judgements, and snide observations about the backwards kingdom of Dog Lords and their quaint, uncivilized ways. It seems like at least once a week she must suffer through such a conversation with some visiting dignitary. At least twice in the past year such a happenstance has ended with her digging through Skyhold’s vaults for some interesting trinket and sending it, along with a very nice bottle of liquor, to Alistair with a simple, heartfelt _“Thank You”_. The _“for not being a pretentious asshole”_ going unsaid.

Catheryn likes Ferelden. She likes the people. She likes the myriad subtleties in their lives and personalities. Everyone is so different and yet, at the same time, so breathtakingly the same. Put a hundred people in a room and you can spot those from Ferelden instantly. Not because of their clothing or their masks, and not because of their voices – though the accent will give them away – but because there is a quality about them that cant be mistaken for anything else.

And the land, just like the people, is an ever shifting landscape – beautiful and untamed, even within the boundaries of civilization. She would have been content, even happy, here should life have dealt her a different hand.

“So where are we going?” she asks as she leans back into Cullen’s arms. It is strange to be riding a horse again after so long on the more narrow-backed dracolisk. She’s probably going to be sore tomorrow. At least Bull isn’t here otherwise she’d never hear the end of the jokes.

“ _We’re not taking the Fiend_ ,” Cullen had stated flatly when she had gone to saddle him. When asked why not he’d replied, “ _Because actual people – not refugees, mercenaries, rogue mages, or Templars – still live where we are going. It’d be bad form if some little kid playing in the woods got eaten by the Inquisitor’s mount_.” Catheyrn had wanted to argue but considering that the number of people who can approach the Fiend without risking their life can be numbered on one hand with fingers left over... well, Cullen had presented a valid point.  So the Fiend remains behind with Thom and instead she is riding double with Cullen.

She can’t bring herself to complain about the situation. Not one single, tiny bit.

Cullen’s lips curl into a smile against the back of her head and he shifts, the sounds of creaking leather filling the air as he adjusts his grip on the reins and tightens his fingers curled around the edge of her hip. “We’ll be there soon enough,” he murmurs, amused.

“I’m not complaining, mind you,” Catheryn adds as she traces a fire glyph onto his thigh, imbuing it with just enough mana to combat the fine shiver she can feel beginning in his extremities. It is not nearly as frigid here, away from the towering peaks of the Frostbacks but it is still the middle of winter. The air around them is sharp with cold and heavy with the scents of the fresh fallen snow crunching beneath the charger’s hooves and the wood smoke spiraling above the farmhouses that they pass. “I just… I don’t like surprises.” Cullen doesn’t either, all things told. Historically, surprises have not gone well for either one of them.

“I know. I just…I would rather explain there,” he inhales sharply, his lips moving in a silent curse against her skull. “Do you trust me?” he finally asks and it is so brokenly heartfelt that she is twisting in the saddle before he is even really finished, staring up at his face. The gold of his eyes is subdued, overshadowed by the ruddiness of his cheeks – cold induced, not the blush that more than half of the civilized world swoons over.

He’s serious, she realizes. He really wants to know.

Does she trust him? Maker, that’s the most ridiculous question in the whole of Thedas. She’d be dead a thousand times over if she didn’t trust him. She trusts him not just with her life and her physical wellbeing but she trusts him to guard her against the nightmares, to hold her when she threatens to break apart from the inside.

She trusts him as he trusts her.

“Yes,” she promises and does nothing to hide the depth of surety in her voice as she cups his face with her palm, “Forever and always,” she adds, tugging him down for a kiss. Sometimes even the most unnecessary of questions must be answered.

Less than an hour later Cullen reigns in the dark bay forder and slips from the saddle, stalling her with a hand on her knee when she goes to follow. Content to let him take the lead Catheryn waits while he tethers the horse to a nearby tree. “I can dismount on my own you know,” she murmurs into his chest as he swings her from the saddle with hands around her waist.

“I know,” he replies, a nervous little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t offer any explanation though. “This way.”

Catheryn follows him as he picks his way through the snow, skirting around a copse of fir trees to where a narrow path meandered through the forest and over a hill. “Where are we?” she asks as she carefully picks her way up the trail. Not that she’ll slip. Cullen’s got her fingers woven through his and he wouldn’t let her fall.

Cullen flashes a grin over his shoulder. “You’ll see,” he promises and she does.

“ _Oh_.”

From the top of the hill she can see the lake. It’s small, smaller even than the lake at Haven, but despite the chill of the air surrounding them and the inches of snow on the ground its surface is completely free of ice. In fact, the lake itself is a burst of foggy blues and greens against the stark white of the snow, its banks thick with reedy cattails and sharp stemmed grasses. She can see half a dozen copses of blood lotus from here and there is no doubt in her mind that the shallow waters beneath the dock are thick with spindleweed.

“The lake is fed by a hot spring. It’s warm year round,” Cullen explains with a fond smile.

Catheryn inhales sharply as he leads her down to the dock, the shock of ice and cold suddenly replaced with humid warmth and the lush, earthy smells of life. “It’s beautiful,” she breathes, her eyes tracking the movement of a long legged crane as it melts into the foliage.  The wood of the dock creeks and gives beneath their feet as they step onto it and Cullen gives her a little push, untangling his fingers from hers and wordlessly urging her out onto the lake.

It’s beautiful but the beauty is more than what she can see with her eyes. Closing them she takes one careful step after another, trusting that Cullen will stop her before she pitches into the water. Now that she’s not drowning in the scenery she can hear the frogs and insects chirping and singing in the reeds. Somewhere, something falls into the water with a heavy _plop_. A bird – several birds sing, their cries echoing in her ears. It is peaceful – an island of serenity and life hidden from the world by hills and swirling fog. No matter how hard she listens there isn’t any sounds of fighting – no swords clashing or bows twanging, no explosion of magic or screams of pain. When she breathes deep she smells life and greenery instead of fire and flame and death. The only decomposition here belongs to waterlogged grasses and wood and not to bloating corpses.

There’s no song, no stench, no hurt.

She stops, feeling the end of the dock before she reaches it, and opens her eyes as Cullen comes up beside her. He’s warm and solid and _real_ , anchoring her in the floating, ethereal beauty she finds herself surrounded by.

“You walk into danger every day. I wanted to take you away from that. If only for a moment,” Cullen’s voice is low and so thick with emotion that Catheryn can’t stop herself from turning to look at him. The amber of his eyes shine in the sunlight, gleaming like molten gold. There’s the soft pink staining his cheeks to betray his nervousness but he’s looking at her like she’s Andraste herself. Only better because Catheryn has seen him pray and he most certainly doesn’t look at Andraste and her bowls of fire like _that_.

Andraste’s loss.

Leaning against one of the dock’s pillars he cross his legs and arms, staring at the landscape around them with a serenity and fondness that takes her breath away. She’s never seen him so relaxed, so _at peace_. Not even when he sleeps. _Especially_ not when he sleeps. “I grew up not far from here,” he tells her softly. “This place was always quiet.” The comment is simple, encompassing, and contains far more than the mere words would have one think.

They have always been able to communicate without words.

Cullen’s whole life is strictly divided into two sections: _Before He Joined the Templars_ and _After He Joined the Templars_. The latter is again subdivided – his days and actions forced into quantifiable categories: _Kinloch_ , _Greenfell, Kirkwall, the Inquisition_ – leaving the majority of his life an open book, exposing all of his actions and secrets to anyone who simply puts forth the effort to look. _Before He Joined the Templars_ , is different. His childhood is his own, shrouded from the public and couched in the simplest possible terms in most formal records.  He mentions it rarely and only to a chosen few. Catheryn herself hoards every scrap of memory and information he has gifted her, valuing them over all the riches in her treasury.

_This is his safe place_ , she realizes as she watches him. This is his haven, the last hold out to which he retreats when everything – even his own mind – goes to shit.  And he is sharing it with her.

_Do you trust me_?

The tightness in her chest is almost overwhelming and Catheryn blinks desperately, trying to clear the sudden tears that burn in her eyes. She wants to touch him, to hold him, to thank him for this gift but she can’t move. “Did you come here often?” she asks him instead, twisting her fingers in the hem of her coat and forcing herself to take measured controlled breaths.

“I loved my siblings but they were very loud. I would come here to clear my head,” he explains, a huff of laughter escaping as he recalls, “Of course, they always found me eventually.”

“You were happy here,” Catheryn breathes, assaulted by images of Cullen as a child sneaking away to steal a few moments of quiet – perhaps with a book or maybe a stick to practice the rudimentary swordplay that the local Templars were teaching him. Maybe Mia had been too bossy or obnoxious. Maybe Branson was being too clingy, lost in the throes of older brother hero worship. Maybe Rosalie was too fussy. Whatever the reason she can see him in her mind’s eye, cheeks still fleshy with childhood, shoulder length hair caught back in a simple leather tie that does little to actually control the curls. She can picture him walking through the reeds, swinging his ‘sword’ at birds and frogs, beheading cattails and imaging they are darkspawn. She can see him curled up at the edge of the dock, book in hand or simply with his knees pulled up to his chin as he stares out at the water. All too well she can see the rueful, if somewhat pleased, smile that pulls at his lips as the peace shatters around him, the quiet of the moment lost beneath the attack of a gaggle of spirited, tow-headed children.

“I was. I still am.” He catches her hand, the leather of his glove creaking and sighing as he wraps his fingers around hers.

“I’m sorry,” whispers Catheryn.

“For what?”

“You don’t have any place like this at Skyhold,” she explains with a soft shrug. “You don’t have any quiet to escape to.” He didn’t. His office is one of the main thoroughfares along the battlements.  The War Room is frequently empty but it is filled with work, work, and more work. The garden might come close, but it is everyone else’s quiet place too and the chantry is haunted by a lurking Mother Giselle, whom Cullen treats with a frosty tolerance at best. Their quarters are comforting and _theirs_ but they also serve as Catheryn’s office and frequent meeting space for all of the Inner Circle. There’s nowhere in Skyhold that can be just his, if even for a moment.

The confusion melts from his face like fresh ink left out in the rain, replaced instead with a smile that is brighter than the sun over their heads. “Yes I do,” he assures gently, watching her carefully. “You are my quiet.”

Catheryn’s heart flat out stops inside of her chest.

“ _Oh_ ,” she manages after a lengthy moment. “But… but I’m…” she shakes her head. Maker, of all the times for words to fail her. “You’ve seen the worse mages have to offer,” she whispers, a simple statement of fact. “How can I be your…?” she waves her hand, encompassing the lake in a gesture. “How can you not see that in me?” she finally asks quietly, voicing one of the darkest fears of her heart. She would not blame him if he did. She has excellent, exacting control and still… if it were not for a desperate, lyrium-less smiting he had performed on her in the prison of Val Royeux she might have very well fallen to mindless possession, letting Rage slip the veil and into her skin.

“I don’t,” Cullen promises gently, pulling her close and lowering his head until their breaths mingle over clasped hands. “If I’ve given you reason to doubt…” he searches her face and sighs, seeing the memory of all the times she’s seen him flinch away from magic and mages. By his own admission he’s come so far, not only seeing them as people but actively supporting their freedom and autonomy time and time again. A change of heart can only do so much though. It can’t erase what has been done to him. It can’t make the body forget the wrongs wrought upon it by magic. “… of course I have.” Cullen shakes his head and presses his lips to her forehead. “Whatever I fear of magic, I see none of that in you,” he utters hoarsely, his lips brushing the words against her ear. “I would have thought that was obvious,” he adds. “I have had your magic on my skin and surging through my blood, buried so deep in my flesh that I can feel it filling in and soothing the edges of all the broken pieces. It is you and you are it and I would never be without you.”

“Never?” Catheryn asks against his lips.

“Never,” he reaffirms. When they finally manage to part Catheryn’s heart is hammering in her ears, her breath coming fast in a way that draws Cullen’s lidded gaze down to the heaving flesh of her chest. “The Templars have rules about fraternization with mages,” he informs her with a small, teasing smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Thankfully, I’m no longer bound by them.”

“No longer… “ Catheryn tips her head to the side and smiles. “Would it have really stopped you? If we’d met before?”

Cullen has the grace to blush right to the tips of his ears. “I don’t… I…” he scrambles, clearly not having thought this line of questioning through. Catheryn laughs softly and soothes him with fingers scraping along his stubble lined jaw.  He shuts his eyes, a purr of approval rumbling in his chest as her thumb drags along the seam of his mouth. “It is hard to believe that I wouldn’t have noticed you,” he finally admits.

The next kiss is fierce from the beginning, all teeth and tongue as he holds her captive between his hands. It’s not an apology, though she can taste threads of Cullen’s regret for who he had been, but a possessive mapping – as if the mention of his past has shaken something in him and he must remind himself that she is real. That she is here, in his arms, and _his_. Catheryn groans as his teeth close over her bottom lip, tugging at it sharply to open her further. She obliges, mouth falling open beneath his attack. For a moment she wants to surge up to meet him, wants to nip and growl and bite at his mouth like he does hers. She wants to give as good as she takes, wants to show him somehow, someway exactly how much all of this means to her.

But that is not what he needs.

_You take care of everyone else all the time,_ Solas’ observation echoes in her head. _It is pleasant to be allowed to occasionally care for you in return._

Catheryn can feel it in the way his hands grip at her hips and slide around her head to tighten in the hair at the nape of her neck. He holds her like she is something precious that he is afraid to lose. She wants to soothe him, to wipe away that fear with reassurances but she doesn’t because now is not the time for that. Never mind that he has spent much of the last seven months taking care of her, there is something in this that is poignantly, achingly different.

So instead she gives in to her body and his and melts in the cage of his arms, letting him hold her and move her, taste her and touch her. Cullen shudders, a soft, sobbing growl falling from his mouth at her surrender. She lets him have her, lets him provoke and swallow all the little noises she can make – gasps and groans and sharp hitches of breath as he holds her body to his.

Catheryn stumbles after him when he not only pulls away but steps out of reach, one hand held out to stop her from coming closer as he closes the other around the timber of the dock and sucks in deeply. She whines, high pitched and needy in her throat, but she obeys the wordless order and stays put, not even allowing herself the relief of leaning into his outstretched hand. She doesn’t know whether to smile or weep as she watches Cullen pull himself back together.

Probably both.

“Cullen…”

He shakes his head. “The farmers will be bringing their animals for water around noon. It’s easier than breaking ice on water troughs all day.” Never has Catheryn hated practicality so much in her life.

“Fuck,” she grumbles and Cullen laughs.

“Soon, beloved,” he promises with a smirk that might very well break his face. The look in his eyes says very clearly that he remembers that they don’t have to meet up with the others until midmorning tomorrow and that he plans on taking advantage of that to the fullest.

“We could go now,” she suggests but, even accounting for the way her blood is pounding in her veins and everything between her legs is still the consistency of jelly, she doesn’t mean it.

“We could,” Cullen agrees. He doesn’t mean it either.

They stand in companionable silence, not entwined as they might wish, but close enough that their arms brush through the layers of coats and minimal – at least on Catheryn’s part – armor and watch this little pocket of the world go on around them.

“You know… the last time I was here was the day I left for Templar training,” Cullen begins slowly as he pulls something from his pocket. “My brother gave me this. It just happened to be in his pocket but he said it was for luck.” He smiles down at the coin held in his hand, his thumb drawing over the face of it in a familiar, instinctive motion. It’s something he’s clearly done a lot, the visage of Andraste worn down to almost nothing. “Templars are not supposed to carry such things. Our faith should see us through.”

Thinking of their earlier words she nudges him softly with her shoulder. “You broke the Order’s rules? I’m shocked,” she smirks at him.

Cullen snorts. “Maker’s breath… I’ll have you know that until a few years ago I was very good at following them. Most of the time.” They share a smile before he adds more seriously, “This was the only thing I took from Ferelden that the Templars didn’t give me.” He takes her hand, pressing the coin into her palm. “I know it’s silly and probably nothing but…I should have died during the Blight, or at Kirkwall, or Haven – take your pick! But I didn’t.”

Realization dawns and she shakes her head. “I can’t possibly…” she whispers, staring at him. “It is all you have of your brother. It’s…I don’t want your luck to run out, Cullen. I couldn’t… I couldn’t bear it.”

“Nor could I,” Cullen agrees, “not when I finally have some but… humor me, please. We don’t know what you’ll face before the end. I will rest easier knowing that you carry it with you. It can’t hurt.”

Catheryn hesitates a moment longer and then nods, closing her fingers around the warm circle of metal as he withdraws his hand. “Alright,” she murmurs, holding it to her chest. “I’ll keep it safe.”

Cullen sighs, pleased. “Good. I know it is foolish but I’m glad.” She stands in his arms, head nestled against his chest, listening to his heart beat with his lips pressed to the top of her head until the laughter of children urging along their plodding druffalo disrupts their reverie.

“Apparently some things never change,” she whispers, leaning back to watch them scamper down the hill, slowing in caution as they notice the unfamiliar pair.

“It gives me strength,” he whispers in her ear. “To know that a place like this still exists, that despite all the horror engulfing our world there are still children that laugh and skip and run as they do their chores… it makes me believe that we will actually win this.” Catheryn squeezes his hand in response and he presses a quick kiss to her cheek. “Come. Let us leave them to their duties. We’ll have to return to our own soon enough.”

They watch for a moment more from the quiet, lulling peace of the lake before they climb the path back to their mount, fingers laced in the space between them.


	3. If It's Not Awkward You're Probably Not Doing It Right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter is NSFW
> 
>  
> 
> Also a big shout out to those that have left comments - I big fluffy heart them and they make me grin like an idiot every time I see them.

The first time Cullen had seen Catheryn naked he didn’t even notice.

No. That’s a lie.

He did notice – vaguely – as he was stripping her blood stained, ice driven clothing from her body and marveling that she was still alive. He noticed just enough to know that she would be even lovelier than he had imagined when she wasn’t frozen and deathly white. He noticed just enough to reaffirm that he was an undeserving bastard that should probably be kicked clear into next week.

 “ _Help me get her warm_ ,” he’d snapped as he’d stripped down to his smallclothes in neat, precise movements that hid his desperation. Blackwall had hesitated for a moment and then stripped as well, joining Cullen beneath the layers of coats and blankets, pressing his warmth along Catheryn’s back.

They had held her between them, the heat of their bodies returning life to her limbs.

“Never let it be said that the Maker doesn’t have a sense of humor,” Cullen huffs quietly, trailing his finger along the line of her collarbone and down across the curve of her breast. Catheryn stirs slightly beneath his touch, making a soft, happy noise as she nuzzles into his shoulder.

“He’s fucking hilarious,” she mumbles against his skin, blinking slowly to clear the haze of sex-induced sleep from her gaze. “What are you thinking about?” she asks more gently, tipping her head so that she can peer up at him from underneath the long lengths of her eyelashes.

Maker, her eyes are beautiful, especially now when they bright and relaxed with pleasure. They are a dark, vibrant brown that are a shade somewhere between the chocolates Josephine imports from Antiva and tree bark moon beneath a new moon, her pupils highlighted by a faint band of gold that separates the brown from inky blackness. On their own they’re gorgeous, but set in the softly freckled expanse of her pale, creamy skin amidst the strong features of her face and the thick cascade of dark auburn curls they are striking – the sort of eyes that can, and frequently do, take his breath away from across the room. Her entire being is contained there in her eyes and they’re beautiful, always. Beautiful when she’s angry, when she’s sad, when she’s happy, hurt, or embarrassed. They’re beautiful, always, but he’s the only one that gets them like _this_.

For now.

“You,” he answers honestly, drawing his finger up the curve of her other breast and smiling at the shiver it pulls from her. “You’re so beautiful.”

“Flatterer. We all know that you’re the pretty one,” she smirks as he blushes, the heat of it burning his cheeks.

“Maker’s… I’m not,” Cullen growls with certainty. “I’m really, _really_ not.” His breath stutters as Catheryn catches at his collarbone with her teeth, dragging them across the tight surface of his skin.

She chuckles, the sound muffled as she trails kisses down his chest. “So you say but I’m not the one that gets a handful of proposals every week. And half of them would make the Randy Dowager blush in shame." Cullen groans as she moves over top of him and draws the flat nub of his nipple into her mouth, the moist heat making him arch up off the bed and into her touch. She nips sharply and instantly laves the sting of pain away with her tongue, making his flesh pebble.

“I might be… pretty…” he gasps as she sucks across his chest, little red marks blooming beneath mouth. “…but I’m not… _bloody Maker_ … you.” Catheryn rolls her eyes upward and stares at him while her tongue traces lazy, teasing circles around the other nipple. He can’t help himself. He reaches down and runs his fingers through her hair, tangling his fingers in those curls and scraping his fingertips against her skull. “You _see_ us – you see _me_ ,” he whispers. “You see us and you love us anyway and… Maker, that makes you the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Catheryn doesn’t blush often but when she does it’s a beautiful pink glow that suffuses her cheeks and makes the dusting of freckles on her nose and cheekbones stand out like little shining dots. She opens her mouth and shuts it after a moment, shaking her head. Instead, she ducks her head and presses a firm kiss to just over his heart, the clutch of her fingers against his skin speaking louder than the words she finally mutters into his skin. “I _love_ you,” she breathes kisses down line of his stomach.

Cullen clutches at the sheets, gasping as she slides down his body and settles between his legs. The touches of her hands are feather light, a tantalizing counter balance to the nips of her teeth as she traces the contours of his abdomen and the jut of his hip bones. She knows just how to touch him. Maker preserve him, she’s always known just how to touch him, playing him with a finesse that steals the words from his mouth and the brains from between his ears.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” he cries as she takes his half hard dick in her mouth. Catheryn hums in response, eyes rolling up to watch him as she uses her tongue to gather him deeper, taking advantage of his less erect state - something that is rapidly disappearing - to slide down until she can nuzzle her nose into the briar of golden curls springing between his legs. She stays like that for a moment, her breath hot against his skin as she rolls him around her mouth, stroking and sucking until the head grows long enough to nudge at the back of her throat. Cullen swears as she pulls back just enough to ease her gag reflex before she’s bobbing back down again. Up and down, long languorous draws of her mouth that makes his pulse hammer in his veins and his head dizzy

Her hands, _Maker_ help him, her _hands_ – he’d almost forgotten about them. She tugs lightly on the loose sac between his thighs, rolling his balls between her fingers as his hips jerk beneath her, snapping his cock deeper into her mouth until she must swallow or choke. She swallows, purring, the vibrations making stars flash on the back of his eyelids.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he prays again as his hands go to her head, holding her still as he pumps up into her in short, quick strokes before he abruptly hauls her up and smashes their teeth together. “You undo me,” he gasps into her mouth. “Every bloody time…” It doesn’t matter that he’s already had her hard and screaming against the hut’s door, her legs wrapping around his waist and pressing him inside before they’d even gotten the lock bolted. It doesn’t matter that he’s already hoisted her up onto the small table – they seem to have developed a fetish for them – put her legs over his shoulders and buried his tongue in her cunt until she’s limp and her juice is dripping off his chin like rain. It doesn’t matter that he’s taken her in this bed, rocking into her with his face buried in the curve of her neck as she comes apart beneath him. 

It doesn’t matter. His body still goes up like dry tinder beneath her touch, exploding like it’s been an age and a day and not a few hours since he last had her.

“ _Cullen_ …” she whines his name, pleading, and he feels like the Maker himself in the face of her want. It’s practically tangible, jumping across their skin in small, sparking bolts of lightning.

“Right here,” he grunts as he pulls her down onto his cock, groans of relief echoing in both of their chests as he slides into the tight, silken fist of her body. “Maker…so good. So bloody good,” he gasps as she winds her arms around his neck and gives an experimental roll of her hips. “Just like that, love. Oh, fuck, just like that…” Cullen slides his hands down the curve of her back until his fingers roll around the edges of her ass, clutching the firm globes with a grip that pulls a long, breathing sigh from her lips.

She rides him then in short, shallow movements, using her forearms against his shoulders to give her leverage as she takes her pleasure from his body.  She’s tender, her body nearly wrung out from the vigor of their earlier lovemaking, and it forces little gasping cries from her lips every time she moves: desperate, begging noises as he drags and stretches at her inside flesh.  He helps her move, just a bit, with his hands, as he ducks to suck a lovely rose colored nipple between his teeth. He suckles at it, rolling around his mouth and flicking at it with his tongue at it until she cries, fingers scrambling against his skull.

“Please,” she finally whispers, head falling back as she grinds against his pelvis. “I need… _fuck_!” Smiling against her breast he slides a hand between them, his finger dipping between her soaked folds, both of them shuddering as it presses, ever so gently, up between his cock and her body.

“Like this?” he asks as he teases the digit up into her heat, desperately trying to ignore the tightness in his balls and the jumping of his cock. Maker, he’s so close, and the noises falling out of her throat aren’t helping. “… or like this?” he moves the finger up, swiping it over the pulsing, sensitive nub.

“ _Yes_ ,” she gasps, her entire body clenching around him. “Yes. That. Just… _please_ ,” she begs.

“Yes,” he agrees, hoarsely, lost in the way her hair cascades wildly around her face and across his shoulders, lost in the way her whole body shudders, her insides twitching and gripping at him in a shadow of things to come. “I need to feel you come, love," he whispers raggedly as he grips her tighter. "I need you to come on my cock.”

_I need you right here, with me. Always._

“Yes,” she gasps as he rubs again, circling and pressing at her clit in the way she loves best. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Fuck. Cullen. Yes. I’m… oh, fuck…” she tightens around him a scream that drives all the air from his lungs like a punch.

“Yes,” he breathes and tightens his grip on her ass to hold her steady as he snaps his hips, driving up into her, pushing through the tightness of her pleasure and making high pitched noises fall helplessly from her lips.

“Catheryn,” he sighs and her name is a prayer of worship on his tongue as he comes.

 

* * *

 

“Why Thom?”

Cullen stiffens slightly, his arms tightening around Catheryn. The question is not unexpected. He’s been waiting for it since the moment he opened his mouth and suggested that she take the other man with her. “He’s a qualified warrior and he’s solid, steady. Certainly less volatile than some of the Inner Circle.” Sera, he’s thinking of Sera. Cole and Dorian aren’t exactly saints either. “You have said it yourself – you would not have pardoned him if you did not believe he could still be a trusted and valuable member of the Inquisition.”

She doesn’t buy it.

Not that it’s _not_ true and she _has_ said it but that’s not why he wants Thom on the mission. Well, not entirely.

He sighs. “You two need some time together outside of Skyhold and away from… everything. Even me,” he adds softly, pressing lips to the top of her head. “Perhaps, especially me.”

Catheryn goes terribly, deadly still in his arms, every muscle coiled beneath his touch like a snake preparing to strike. It’s no surprise. No, anyone who knows Catheryn knows that the moment of utter stillness is the quiet before the storm.  “No,” she snaps. “ _No!_ If you think for one blighted minute that I’ll let you give in to some misguided chivalry… you can’t _give me back_ , Cullen,” Catheryn snarls, a fork of lightning snapping off her skin. “I…”

“… no!” he barks, the horror in his voice unmistakable. “Not that. Maker’s breath, never that,” he breathes frantically, hugging her tightly and shuddering beneath the sudden tingling splash of magic that falls across his flesh. “I meant what I said earlier. I would never be without you. _Never_.” Andraste preserve him, he’s not sure he would survive her loss. To be honest, he doesn’t think he would want to. She’s in his blood and rooted in his soul.

Catheryn heaves, a great gasping breath that fills the hut with its sound. “Oh,” she utters rather faintly. “That’s good then. That’s… but…”

Cullen shuts his eyes and takes a deep, steadying breath of his own. “You still love him.”

She jerks, startled, in his arms, her pulse hammering beneath the fingertips he’d laid against the undersides of her wrists. “I… Cullen, I…” she shakes her head weakly against his chest as she slumps into him. “I love _you_ ,” she finally whispers.

Maker, she’s quivering like a beaten dog beneath his touch. Rubbing his palms soft and steady up and down the length of her arms he makes soothing noises in her ear. “I know, love, I know,” he murmurs, peppering her head, her face, the curve of her ear – anything and everything he can reach – with kisses. Touch, touch is the most important thing to get through to her. If he’s touching her, he’s not leaving her, and she knows it. “I can see it in your eyes every time you look at me. I could never doubt it. Never.”  Gently he takes her face in his hand and kisses her.

The hurt in her beautiful brown eyes is plain to see and he feels it like a foot of steel buried between his ribs. It’s the kind of hurt that cripples, that makes every hitching breath a painful drag as your body still tries to breathe and function, unaware that it’s already dead. It’s the kind of hurt that will kill you, slowly. Catheryn slumps in his hands, shoulders collapsing inward and Cullen inhales sharply at the tears that bead along her eyelashes until they tip over the edge and run down her cheeks in a steady stream.

Her voice cracks as she whispers, “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Cullen tells her firmly. “ _Nothing_.”

“But I… I love someone else,” she whispers miserably.

“Yes. And I have known that to be true for every moment that we have been together,” he continues calmly, silencing her with a finger placed gently over her lips. “Just because he left you and broke your heart doesn’t mean that you stopped loving him. I knew exactly what I was getting into when I entered into this relationship. Well,” he corrects with a small smile. “I knew in regards to your feelings towards Thom. I never dreamt that you might harbor those same feelings for me.”

“It’s different,” she corrects brokenly.

“But is it less?” Cullen prods gently.

Catheryn shakes her head, a vigorous jerk of denial. “No!”

“Is it more?”

Her response is slower this time and less enthusiastic but it is exactly what he expects – a shake of her head. “No.”

“We are different men so it is natural that you love us differently,” Cullen tells her, a hint of smile playing at the corner of his lips despite the stiff, frozen feeling gripping at his chest. “And since you do not care for one of us more than the other…” He trails off and takes a deep breath, considering his words carefully as he strokes her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “I have never felt anything like this,” he whispers, “and I know you feel it for me too – and for Thom. I can’t imagine feeling this for someone and ignoring it. Maker’s breath, it must be killing you to pretend that it’s not there.” Catheryn doesn’t answer him. Maybe she can’t. She shudders in his hands, body quivering with a suppressed sob and it's answer enough. “I can’t ask you to do that,” he whispers against her forehead. “I can’t hurt you like that.”

“…what?” She nearly wrenches herself from his hands in her haste to pull back and get a good look at his face. Cullen lets her go and meets her gaze. She needs to look, she needs to _see_. Catheryn blinks, bewilderment and surprise twisting her tear-stained face. “Cullen… what… I don’t… are you telling me to resume a romantic relationship with Thom?” she finally manages to sputter out. The look on her face is almost comical in its surprise.

Cullen feels the shadow of a smile tug further at his lips. “No,” he reassures. “I would never presume to tell you such a thing. I _am_ telling you that you should talk with him. If nothing else you need some sort of closure.”

“… but you would not object if I… if we…” she stumbles over her words, staring at him with such utter incomprehension on her face that he can’t help but swoop down and kiss her.

“No,” he breathes against her lips. “If you wish to take Thom to your bed again I would not object as long as I did not have to leave it. Metaphorically speaking. Unless…” he winces, shaking his head and startling a choked giggle from her throat.

“You’d… Andraste’s flaming ass… _really_?”

Cullen blushes crimson, the whole of his face lighting on fire but he nods.  “Yes. Really.” Her hands are clammy beneath his, the bafflement and outrage beginning to mix with apprehension and fear on her face. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t get it. “You see everyone so well,” he murmurs, “but you can’t see this and you’re forcing me – _me!_ – to use words to explain.” Cullen takes a slow, deep breath, reminds himself that he’s a grown man and attempts to use his words. “I am not, nor will I ever, try to force you into doing something that you don’t want. Not that I would be successful. As any single one of our bloody war councils proves.” A small smile pulls at the worry on her face and he squeezes her hands reassuringly. “But you have always been blind to me in these matters. You have to understand, there is little – _nothing_ – that I would not do to make your life easier, to bring you happiness and peace.”

“I can. I _do_ ,” Catheryn cries softly as she searches his face. “Do you not understand that I feel the same about you? Why do you think I…” she trails off with a shark jerk of her head, a muttered curse falling from her lips. “It is not worth the risk,” she finally mutters. “Losing Blackwall nearly broke me – it would have if you had not been there to hold me together. I could not lose you too.”

“You won’t,” he promises. “I don’t expect it to be easy but…” he shrugs. “Thom and I have been talking. Since... well. For the past several months." Beneath his touch she is still, so still that he almost reminds her that she needs to breathe except she does exactly that, inhaling sharply, the air shaking with the force that she uses to draw it into her lungs. "This... this possibility is not something I would - _could_ \- bring up unless I knew I would be comfortable with it." He can feel some of the tension ease out of her at that and he sighs gently and presses a soft kiss to her forehead before she leans back.

Catheryn scrubs a hand down the length of her face. “I need a drink,” she mutters and then sighs. “I… fucking Andraste on a pyre... I’m going to need to think about this.”

“I know. I don’t expect you to decide right now and hatch some sort of battle plan. This isn’t a war table operation.” He wraps his arm around her and tugs gently, a thread of tightly held tension unraveling when she slumps against him. “The truth is I don’t know how this will turn out, but I know you need to try. That _we_ need to try. All three of us.”

She nods softly, just once, and clings to him so tightly that he can feel her grip against his ribs. Sensing the end of the conversation he gently hauls her up into his lap, positioning her between his lips and tucking her head beneath his chin. It is easy enough to reach for a blanket and pull it over her bare shoulders, his hand lingering on the curve of them as she hums in soft response.

“I love you,” Catheryn tells him after a moment, the soft, muffled whisper breaking through the chaotic fury of his own thoughts.

“I know,” he replies softly. “I love you too.”

 

* * *

 

They rejoin the rest of the party later that day, a little before noon, and Cullen bids them farewell on a hilltop that affords them a good look of much of the Hinterlands stretching before them. After kissing Catheryn farewell – again – and sending her off down the hillside with Cassandra in tow, the Seeker unsubtly prying for any romantic details the Inquisitor might be convinced to share with her, he offers his hand to the man he once knew as Blackwall. Thom takes it, clasping his forearm and searching his face. Once they had been friends, brothers even. Cullen doesn’t know what they are anymore. Thom’s revelations and Catheryn’s pregnancy and subsequent loss ripping them apart and reknitting them into something else - not that he knows what that is. Like he told Catheryn, this isn’t an operation he can run with a handful of orders and a fistful of maps.

Maker, he has no bloody idea what he is doing.He just hopes that he’s not destroying what little they have left.

 “I have done what I can,” Cullen tells him and the older man nods.

 “It’s more than I deserve.”

 Though it’s not quite true Cullen can’t find it in himself to disagree. “Take care of her,” he says instead.

Thom nods and releases his arm, hand falling to grip his sword pommel reassuringly. “I will.” And he will. If nothing else Cullen can trust that Thom will, always and forever, put himself between Catheryn and physical danger.

“Andraste’s ass, if you don’t want me to put this shit in a book you have to stop doing it where I can see it,” Varric mutters as he rides past.

 It’s easy to turn and scowl at the dwarf, the look mirrored on Thom’s face.

Maker help him, if this ends up in a book Cullen cannot be held responsible for his actions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title paraphrased from something a friend [who has been involved in a very successful long term triad plus occasional other relationships] once said to me regarding polyamory. 
> 
> Also, I cross my heart and hope to die, pinky swear promise that one of the upcoming pieces for this series is entirely in Cullen's head and covers how he gets from the scene at the end of the first part to this... and further. So if you're going "But... how? Why? _What?!_ " know that I'm not completely throwing you into the deep end of the pool. It just worked better for the flow of the "main" slices of the story if I didn't include that process here.


	4. Well, Shit

“Finally! I started to think you weren’t coming!”

Catheryn’s first impression is of Bianca’s voice – soft toned, even in her exasperation, and lyrical. Her second impression is that here is a woman who always gets exactly what she wants.

“Nobody said you had to hang out in the creepy cave while you waited,” Varric drawls, but Catheryn can see the relief hidden behind the normal sardonic cast of his features.

“That’s my fault,” she puts in. “There was some pressing business that I had to attend to on the way here.” She says it with a perfectly straight face and her best diplomatic voice but off to the side Cassandra chokes on nothing but air and she can hear Thom’s familiar grunt of amusement from behind her. Even Varric’s mouth twitches a little as he rolls his eyes.

“Kitten, meet Bianca Davri. Bianca, this is her Worship Catheryn Trevelyan: the Herald of Andraste and Leader of the Inquisition.”

Catheryn meets the other dwarf’s calculating gaze with a carefully blank one of her own and tips her head at the weapon strapped to Varric’s back. “So you’re Bianca.”

“It’s a common enough name,” the dwarf dismisses. “Half the women in the Merchants Guild are named Bianca. The other half are named Helga. Personally, I think I got the better end of the bargain.” She shrugs, clearly done with the topic and everything it encompasses. Catheryn doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like the way it makes Varric’s shoulders slump and his lips press together as he looks aside.

Catheryn’s third impression is simple and almost overwhelming: she doesn’t like Bianca. Not a single, fucking bit.

Their trip through Valammar does absolutely nothing to change her opinion. Everything from Bianca’s thinly veiled judgmental, “So is this what you do now?” to her happily dismissive comments about a husband off selling her inventions to the wealthy and powerful only heighten the urge to shove her off any one of the treacherous paths they find themselves fighting their way across. Catheryn doesn’t, obviously, but it’s closer than she’d like to admit. In the pauses between fighting Varric asks her questions. Catheryn listens as Bianca answers them, fading into the shadows as she rifles through pockets and urns and biting her tongue to keep from commenting. Varric isn’t stupid. Sarcastic, easy-going demeanor aside he knows what he’s doing. He’s letting her see, pulling back the curtain on some of the secrets he has kept from her.

He’s letting her see him. He’s letting her see Bianca.

Bianca is pretty and almost diminutive looking, but unmistakably peppy – her boundless enthusiasm for everything around her almost nauseating. In a way she reminds Catheryn of Dagna, always moving, always bouncing, except in the Arcanist it is adorable and endearing. With Dagna it is sincere. With Bianca… It’s an act. It’s a trained personality overlaying her real one, or at least curtailing it. A mask. She would have expected to see it on a member of the Orlesian nobility or one of Josephine’s Antivan merchant princes. She hadn’t expected to see it on the face of Varric’s mysterious lover.

And frankly, it doesn’t matter that the other woman is just some Surfacer vs. Ozammar politics away from being a Paragon. She doesn’t like what she sees.

Catheryn values her friends.

Bianca, it is clear, does not.

She’s fond of them in her own way, Catheryn supposes, but they’re tools to her – just as much as the instruments that stock her workshop. That realization made, it shouldn’t surprise Catheryn that things turn out the way they do.

But it does.

 

* * *

 

 “There you are!” Bianca exclaims gleefully as she scoops the thick metal key off the desk, twirling it gracefully between her fingers before clutching it to her chest in a tender, relieved gesture that catches Catheryn’s attention even more than the piping, peppiness of her voice. Never mind that her carefully draped hood and pristine armor is finally showing the signs of the dust, dirt, blood, and gore they have fought and waded through to get to this point, she cradles the key like it is her only child, safely returned to her arms. “They won’t be able to use this entrance again,” the dwarf announces with satisfaction as she pockets the key.

“Bianca…”

Catheryn swallows, locking her jaw to keep back the sudden anger than bubbles up as she draws the same conclusion as Varric. The key, though out of sight, bears a remarkable resemblance to the one that Bianca used to open the door earlier. Identical, really.

_Fuck it_ , she swears internally as she looks down at Varric, the man’s broad, handsome features pale and twisted in disappointment, but not surprise. _This is a mess_. Her fingers tighten on the smooth metal of her staff as she almost unconsciously takes half a step forward, pivoting so that she’s angled toward Bianca, her body halfway imposed between the two dwarves. “You’re the leak,” Catheryn remarks coldly. “You’re how Corypheus knew where to find the red lyrium.”

“Andraste’s ass, Bianca!” Varric explodes from beside her.

Bianca shrugs. “When I got the location, I went and had a look for myself,” she explains, turning around to face them, “and I found the red lyrium… and I studied it.”

Catheryn flinches away from her nonchalant confession, her horror mirrored on Varric’s face as he exclaims, “You know what it does to people!”

“I was doing you a _favor_!” Bianca screeches back, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’ve had _people_ studying it for years now, and they’ve come up with nothing!” I just… _I_ wanted to figure it out.” She slumps a little and Catheryn fights the urge to step forward and shake her. Maker, Varric had called her impetuous but this…Bianca will always be chasing the new, shiny thing. The impossible thing that no one knows or understands and she’ll poke it and pull at it even if it is not wise that she does so.

And then she’ll leave her mess for someone else to clean up.

Catheryn grinds her teeth as she stares at the pouting, unrepentant dwarf. She is so tired of having to clean up everyone else’s blighted mess. “What is it that you’re not telling us?” Catheryn asks, pulling her attention away from Varric.

“I…” Bianca blinks, clearly surprised to be reminded that she is not alone with Varric. “I found out that red lyrium… it has the Blight, Varric!” her gaze swivels back to the sturdy rogue and stare at him entreatingly. “Do you know what that means?”

 Varric, Catheryn is pleased to note, is not buying the doe eyes. “What?” he growls, gesturing wildly at room around them, its features bathed in that unique red glow. “That two deadly things combine to form something super awful? I could have told you _that_!”

“No! It means… lyrium is alive!” Bianca explains, the giddy excitement back in her voice as she practically bounces on the balls of her feet. “Or… something like it. Blight doesn’t affect minerals. Only animals,” she clarifies hastily, and Catheryn can practically see the energy she is putting into willing Varric to not only believe her but to praise her for her latest stroke of genius.

  _It sings to me_ , Cullen has told her more than once, grey faced and covered in a cold sweat, _a whisper in my head that never fades. There are days when it is more real than anyone who walks through my office. More real than even me, as if I am but the shadow and it the body that casts it._

“…I couldn’t get any further on my own so I looked for a Grey Warden mage,” continues Bianca, still lost to the high of her discovery. “Blight and magical expertise in one, right?” When she does not get the clearly expected chuckles or at least nods of agreement she hurries to add, “So I found this guy, Larius. He seemed really interested in helping my research. So I gave him a key.”

The charged silence is broken by Cassandra’s disgusted sigh. “Maker preserve us,” she mutters and Catheryn can’t help but agree, even if she and the Maker aren’t exactly on speaking terms.

“Larius?” Varric repeats quizzically, “He was the Grey Warden that we met in Corypheus’… oh, shit.” The tension momentarily leaks from his body, his entire form slumping like a puppet whose strings have been cut.

“Someone you know?” Catheryn asks calmly, her frustration and anger carefully partitioned away. She needs to find out everything before she makes any sort of call. A decision made without all of the facts is a decision that she’ll regret. She knows this. Doesn’t mean she likes it.

Varric grunts, the harsh sound more of a curse than any words that might come out of his mouth. “He was at the Grey Warden prison where we found Corypheus. And he definitely wasn’t a mage then.” He closes his eyes and forces himself to inhale and then exhale sharply. “I knew something seemed off!” he finally hisses, mouth twisting in a snarl.

“I didn’t realize until you said that you found red lyrium at Haven!” Bianca defends. “I came here and… well…” She shrugs. “Then I went to you?”

Catheryn snorts. “Really?” she inquires dangerously, tipping her head. “Because I distinctly recall trudging out of the ruins of Haven. It was snowy and cold. And _two fucking years ago_.”

“I know, I know… I just…”

“You had to finish your research,” Varric finishes flatly.

“Yes! But then you wrote about what people were doing with the red lyrium and I… had to help make this right.”

_This is a bloody P.R stunt_ , Catheryn realizes, and bites her tongue so hard she can taste blood. “You brought us in to clean up your mess.”

Finally, _finally_ , Bianca looks nervous. “I… I didn’t know…”

“Maferath’s balls, you didn’t!” Varric snaps furiously, his good nature cracking beneath the flood of his emotions. “I told you _exactly_ how bad this shit was! I told you to keep away from it!” The cave around them echoes his cries sharply, their discordance amplified by the shafts of red spearing out of stone and earth. Catheryn’s hand twitches, fingers reaching out to touch him even as her grasp tightens on her staff.

“I know I screwed up, but we did fix it!” Bianca snaps defensively, “It’s as right as I can make it!”

More than two years of destruction, corruption, and death and she thinks that _this_ fixes it. Catheryn wants to laugh or cry. Possibly both. They haven’t _fixed_ anything. They’ve merely stopped the world from pouring more milk into an already spilled glass.

Varric evidently agrees.

“This isn’t one of your machines! You can’t just replace a part and make everything right! People have been _dying_ for _years_ because Corypheus had access to this shit. Entire towns wiped out of existence! I know - I’ve had to help clean them up! The Templars? Poof!” he snaps his fingers in her face. “Gone, Bianca. They’re _gone_. Because of _this_.”

“What else should I have done?” she retorts, her voice taking a mocking edge. “Wallow in my mistakes forever, kicking myself, telling stories of what I _should_ have done?”

 “As if I would tell stories about my own mistakes,” Varric grunts dismissively.

“Varric is right,” Catheryn cuts in, the quiet, iron authority in her voice cowing whatever thoughts Bianca had been about to voice. “I appreciate that you… _allowed_ … us the opportunity to shut this operation down,” her sarcasm, Catheryn is pleased to note, is not missed. “But if you had come forward years ago no doubt thousands of lives could have been saved. We might have even been finished with all this mess by now.”

“I’m…”

Varric cuts her off with an upraised hand as he steps away from her, an alignment of loyalty that could not be mistaken for anything but. “We’ve done all we can here, Bianca,” he dismisses flatly. “You’d better get home before someone misses you.”

“Varric…”

He shakes his head. “No,” he silences her as he turns away. “Just… don’t worry about it.” His hand rises above his shoulder to grip momentarily at the grip on Bianca, his thick fingers curling around the lovingly polished wood in a gesture that only someone who knows him well would recognize for what it is: a nervous tic, a search for comfort amidst the chaos that swirls around him in clouds so thick she can practically see them.

Catheryn catches Cassandra’s gaze once he has left the room – a difficult feat because the Seeker’s steely eyes are currently focused on the small dwarven inventor standing before them with an intensity that has sent dragons winging for cover. Bianca, though, does not possess the self-preservation instincts of a dragon and instead is staring after Varric, her jaw set unhappily. When she finally manages to capture Cassandra’s attention she jerks her head in the direction Varric’s gone. For a moment Cassandra looks stunned but then she nods unsteadily, shoving her sword into its sheath and slipping her shield onto her back before she stalks after him.

Thom gives a quick, deliberate shake of his head when she catches his eye. _I will not leave you again_ , passes between them, silent and weighty and she tips her head in grateful acknowledgment. There’s no way she’s leaving Bianca down here unattended and, quite honestly, Catheryn’s not sure she trusts herself to be alone with the other woman and not roast her from the inside out. Judging from the tight look on Thom’s face the champion would be in no hurry to save the dwarf but still… He’d save her from herself, from making an avoidable decision that she might later deeply regret.

Abruptly Bianca turns, fixing Catheryn with a glare that would no doubt be frightening if she didn’t already spend inordinate amounts of time with Cassandra, Cullen, Dorian, and… well, most of her Inner Circle. Still, the tension is there and Catheryn shifts lightly on the balls of her feet, magic humming just below the surface of her skin.  “Get him killed and I’ll feed you your own eyeballs, Inquisitor,” Bianca vows dangerously as she straightens and walks away.

Catheryn stares incredulously, fingers tightening on her staff until her knuckles turn white. She hasn’t been this close to lighting someone on fire just to watch them dance since she had to wrangle, threaten, and blackmail Orlais’ ruling trio into playing nice. “Is that supposed to frighten me?” she asks softly, all traces of civility gone.

“Varric means a great deal to me,” Bianca retorts sharply. “I won’t have you getting him hurt.”

“You won’t have me getting him…” Catheryn laughs. She leans her forehead against the crystal at the top of her staff and laughs until it echoes in a never ending round in the air between them. Even without the help of the red lyrium it is not a pleasant sound. “Tell me then, Bianca Davri, what shall I do to you for hurting him? Is mutilation and torture good enough for you or would death be more deserving?”

For the first time in all of this the dwarf looks well and truly nervous, a mouse caught in a trap that she hadn’t realized existed. “You wouldn’t,” she states, her voice wavering ever so slightly. “The Inquisition wouldn’t let you.”

Catheryn bares her teeth, a quick slashing grin. “I _am_ the Inquisition,” she corrects silkily. “They have made me its heart and its head. If I wanted to wipe your miserable existence off the face of the earth they wouldn’t lift a finger to help you. Given your crimes,” she continues with a gesturing wave of her hand that takes in the room they stand in, “I rather imagine that they and the quite a lot of the world at large would throw me a party. Besides, I do not need the might of the Inquisition – not its secrets, its soldiers, or its diplomacy – to punish you. I could boil you from the inside out. Smash you with rocks from the Fade. Freeze the flesh from your bones. Strike you with lightning until nothing but smoking ash remains. I could feed you to demons or even just open a rift to the Fade and drop you inside. I’ve been there, you know, and it’s not pleasant. I’d imagine you’d run out of arrows pretty quickly.”

As if to emphasize how serious she is the Anchor decides to flare up as it occasionally does, sparking like kicked coals. The tingle of its magic races up her arm and Bianca flinches away, hand coming up to block the sudden glare of green light that pushes against the sickly red glow of the lyrium, every ounce of color draining from her face.

“You _wouldn’t…_ ”

“No,” Catheryn agrees with a tip of her head, voice gentling just enough for Bianca to hear it. “I won’t. Not yet. That is the difference between you and I, I think. I have learned that just because I can do something doesn’t mean that I should.” Catheryn flexes her hand, closing her fingers over the mark on her palm. “Make no mistake though, mercy is not weakness. Ask anyone that knows me, anyone at all – I am the Inquisitor and I will give everything I have up to and including my own life to finish my cause, save for those I love. You fuck with someone who is mine and I will end you by whatever means necessary. Varric means a great deal to _me_ ,” she parrots deliberately. “Do we understand each other?”

Bianca swallows and jerks her head sharply. “Yes.”

“Good. Then let’s finish this unpleasant business. I can’t have you, or anyone else, running around down here so please hand over the keys.” Catheryn deliberately extends her left hand, palm glowing, and waits.

Bianca doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like it one bit. She likes the glow on Catheryn’s hand less, though, so she does as instructed and lays the keys in Catheryn’s palm. Despite the unhappy, almost vicious, set to the paleness of her face it’s too easy. Everything Catheryn’s learned about Bianca Davri in the last twelve hours points to exactly one possible conclusion – that she intends to run home to her fancy little workshop in Val Royeux and make herself another key.  Pity for Bianca. If, somehow, someway, she manages to move faster than the people Leliana will send to watch the thaig – extremely unlikely – she will find herself running face first into  a couple of magical shields. The kind that explode when they’re broken.

“You’re fucking terrifying sometimes, my lady,” Thom comments softly as she pauses just outside the room and watches Bianca stalk away, angrily picking her way through the rubble and bodies that they had left behind them. The small little smile and the deep thread of admiration in voice make it a compliment instead of a judgement and for that she is grateful. There are sometimes where the young woman that she used to be, wide-eyed and hopeful in a world of chaos, stares up through the passing of time and can’t understand the person she has come to be. She’s scary now. She has to be.

“Thank you,” she whispers, bumping her shoulder against his arm.

“For what?”

_For using the word sometimes,_ she thinks even as she says out loud, “For staying.”

Thom nods slowly, carefully, his hand tightening around the hilt of his sword as he slides it home. “As long as you’ll have me, I’m yours.”

The emotion in his voice squeezes at her chest and for a moment she nearly throws her arms around him. Maker, she wants to. She wants to clutch at him, bury her head in his chest, and feel the tickle of his beard against her cheek. She doesn’t though. Instead, she smiles and swings her staff over her shoulders and shrugs, feeling the line of it settle into place through the leather and metal of her armor.

“C’mon,” she says with a nod of her head, “I don’t want Bianca out of my sight until we’re topside.”

 

* * *

 

Varric and Cassandra beat them back to the Upper Lake Camp by a fairly considerably amount of time, judging by the path Cassandra has worn through the dirty snow and broken ice, the ground crackling and crunching beneath her feet as she stalks around the tents like a caged beast. “That woman…” she snarls as Catheryn approaches.

“I know,” Catheryn agrees quietly, eyes darting to where Varric is sitting on a log in front of the fire, his crossbow laid next to him. “Captain!” she catches the scout in charge of the camp by the arm as she passes.

“Yes, ser?”

“How many men do we have stationed here?”

“Officially? Half a dozen.”

Catheryn smiles. “And unofficially?” she asks calmly.

“Double that, ser.”

“Good, send a contingent to camp at the Valammar entrance. I want it watched. If Bianca Davri tries to regain entrance she is to be detained by whatever means necessary,” she instructs as stops at one of the tables and pulls a small strip of paper from a small wooden box. “And get me a raven,” she adds as she begins to scrawl a short, coded message to Leliana.

“Right away, ser,” the Captain salutes.

When the raven is rising into the last of the fading light Catheryn makes her way over to Varric. Cassandra has finally stopped pacing, but only because Thom has her contained with a gentle touch to her arm, head bent so that he can talk without his voice carrying to whole of the camp. Catheryn trusts that he knows what he’s doing. It’s either that or Cassandra will lay him on his ass. Of course, if that’s what she needs then he’ll let her, so really it’s probably best to keep an eye on them. Discreetly.

“I’m glad to have answers, but… shit,” Varric mutters as she sits next to him, slinging her staff down to rest next to her. Bianca – the crossbow, not the woman – sits between them in silent observation.  “The second I read her letter, I knew. I just…” He shakes his head, rubbing tiredly at his face. “I let this happen. I gave her the thaig. And I am _not_ good at dealing with shit like this.”

“I don’t think anyone is equipped any better than you are,” Catheryn reassures as she rubs at a spot of blood drying on the knee of her leggings. “Just make it up as you go along. That’s what I do and I haven’t botched anything too badly. Yet.”

“No. No! The point is… I _don’t_ ,” Varric clarifies with a grunt. “I don’t deal with _things_. I ignore them. I run away. I hide. If Cassandra hadn’t dragged me here, I’d still be in Kirkwall right now, pretending none of this was happening.”

“You know that’s not true.” Catheryn is sure of very few things in this world. She’s sure that Corypheus is Bad News, red lyrium is Fucking Terrible, and she’s sure of her friends. They’re the very best people she knows.        “You’ve worked as hard as any of us to stop Corypheus.” Harder, really. Harder than everyone but her advisors and Catheryn herself.

“Is that true?” he asks softly. Sitting they are practically the same height and he stares into her face, searching for something there. “I don’t even know anymore,” he admits sadly and turns back to the fire. He pokes it with one of Bianca’s bolts and sends a cascade of sparks skyward in a sudden rush of light and warmth.

“Of course it’s true,” she scoffs even as she reaches out and lays her hand on his arm, squeezing gently. “You have fought at my side and had my back since the very beginning and I have never doubted you, Varric. _Never_.”

Beside her the dwarf inhales sharply, his breath hissing through clenched teeth. “Sunshine… I don’t…” he shakes his head. “I don’t know what to say to that. Thank you. For your help back there… for everything.”

Catheryn tightens her grip on his arm, hoping that what she feels for him comes through in her touch. “It’s been my honor,” she tells him with a smile, “though I thought I told you not to call me that.”

The smile Varric gives her is lopsided, more serious than joyful, and definitely not snarky. “I know you did Sunshine, but sometimes I need to say it. And sometimes I think you need to hear it.”

“After all this, do you think you’ll see Bianca again?” she asks after a long pause, studiously not looking at him, afraid of what he might see on her face. Her blank face is good but it’s not _that_ good. The only other person she’s disliked this instantaneously was Briala.

Well, and Corypheus, but he doesn’t count.

Varric sighs heavily and stabs at the coals, “I always do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... um... may have some unresolved feelings of hostility towards Bianca. 
> 
> ...  
> And guys, ugh. Everyone - and I pretty much mean everyone, pets included - in my house except for myself got sick last week. And I only managed to write 500 words. I feel like I'm bouncing off the walls of my own skull. It's awful. Cross your fingers that the writing gods are kind to me this week.


	5. The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth, So Help Me God.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I don't even know how this chapter happened. It was initially supposed to be a short conversation that was included in the last chapter. And then I started writing. And this happened. 
> 
> 2) I apologize for the slight delay in posting. My toddler got sick and then both my laptop battery and charger decided to give up the ghost at the same freaking time. And apparently I've been neglecting my "save everything to external sources at least once a week" rule for... uh... longer than I'd like to admit. Thus the delay. (And the shitload of saving I just did).

Everything is still – quiet and crystallized in a way that only the deep hours of the night can manage. Around him the world is a wash of silvers and grays in the moonlight, the lake nothing more than a dark sheet of glass and a gleaming reflection of the night sky. It’s a beautiful night, wild in its stillness, and rife with possibilities. It’s the sort of night that he would have ignored a year ago. It’s the sort of night that makes you feel like anything is possible, like the entire world is just waiting at your fingertips for you to reach out and grab it.

That’s a dangerous feeling when you’re a man living a lie.

Maker help him, it’s a fucking dangerous feeling even now that he’s free. Perhaps especially now. Even with her pardon he’s still a miserable, terrible bastard – everyone just knows it now and still the universe sees to tempt him with everything he wants.

Well fuck the blighted universe. If it is going to tempt him then he’s going to make a grab for it. He’s been two vastly different men in his life – Rainier was a suave, charming, selfish, elitist bastard and Blackwall was a self-loathing miserable dog who knew the value of life and love but couldn’t have it – and now he is becoming a third man still. _Thom_ , while no longer disorientating, still feels new and sharp on his skin, like a pair of boots that haven’t been broken in yet. He’s in that dangerous part of being where he has become a new person but he doesn’t quite know just what kind of man he is yet. That will be months, years in the making.

He knows that she’s part of it, though.

And he’s tired of drowning in the sins of his past.

The snow crunches softly beneath his feet as he climbs up onto the large, flat exposure of rock jutting from the cliff side and the small grove of trees that border the lake. Catheryn is exactly where he thought she would be: sitting on the edge of the rock, feet dangling over the edge and leaning back against hands propped behind her on the rock as she stares up at the sliver of the waning moon that still manages to fill the sky.

“I was hoping you might join me,” she remarks softly, tipping her head back just enough so that he can meet her gaze across the small distance separating them.

“Cassandra was worried that you had… wandered into trouble.” Catheryn snorts.

“Once. That happened _once_. How the fuck was I to know that there was a dragon stupid enough to nest next to all the giants?” she mutters indignantly and he can’t blame her. He had wondered the same thing while he’d been dodging the freezing sheets of fire the dragon had been breathing at him. “Besides, that Ferelden Frostback was pretty territorial and we comb this area pretty often – between the two I’d be shocked if there was another dragon skulking about.”

“It’s been a while since we cleared out the Ferelden,” Thom points out as he steps up to her side. “And dragons aren’t always solitary creatures – look at the situation brewing in Emprise.” He regrets bringing that place up as soon as it falls from his mouth, the painful memories shattering the amused, peaceful looking expression on her face.

Maker, he’s an idiot.

Catheryn shudders. “That doesn’t count,” she hisses viciously. “That place is _clusterfuck_ of terrible abnormality. What happens there…” she shakes her head. “It’s not reality. It’s just a nightmare.  A waking, walking _nightmare_. I have to believe that or go insane.”

Once he would have gathered her in his arms to ease the heartbreak and terror in her voice. If they had been sleeping and such a nightmare had woken her he would have not thought twice about wrapping his arms around her and soothing her with his touch until the worst of it disappeared. But they aren’t in the neutral territory that bed provides and this isn’t a night terror. Thom closes his eyes and takes a steadying breath. Gently, unsure of his welcome, he crouches and wraps a hand around her shoulder, squeezing softly.

“I’m sorry, my lady,” he murmurs. “I shouldn’t have…”

“… no, it’s alright. I don’t want everyone to censure themselves just because the Inquisitor has bad dreams.” She sighs and tips her head, the soft strands of her hair brushing across his knuckles. Inside his chest his heart races at that slight contact – never mind that they’re already touching. He’s touching her. This is Catheryn touching _him._ That’s a completely different animal. Catheryn may be a tactile creature – and Maker save him, she _is_ – but she’s deliberate. If she is touching him she’s doing it on purpose and _that_ knowledge makes his breath halt in his chest and clog in his throat. “How’s Varric doing?”

“He’s had a rough day,” Thom acknowledges, clearing his throat several times, “I think it _didn’t_ surprise him and that’s almost more unsettling than the whole fucking mess. He’ll be alright though. Eventually. For now he’s got the bottle of beer that he keeps stashed in his pack and he’s with Cassandra.”

That earns a small smile from Catheryn. “With Cassandra?” she parrots carefully, “or _with_ Cassandra?” she wiggles her eyebrows suggestively.

Thom laughs and shifts, settling into a more comfortable position, his legs joining hers over the side of the cliff. “The former, sadly. Cassandra still has her head up her ass about the whole matter.”

Catheryn groans and tips her head back until the strands of her hair – more kinks than curls thanks to the braid they’d been held in all day – coil on the surface of the rock between her hands. “Andraste’s tits those two are going to be the death of me,” she mutters. “They’re clearly hung up on each other! Why won’t they just _do it_ already? I mean, I can only throw them together on so many missions that have them climbing up and down hills – Varric’s an ass man – and send them on so many errands that require that he show off his charming wit – because Cassandra’s a sucker for beautiful language – before they… _why are you laughing_?”

“Maker...! Now you know how all of us felt watching you and Cullen dance around each other,” Thom admits, still chuckling, wiping the tears of mirth from his eyes.

“Even you?”

He shrugs. “Especially me,” he admits. “Wanting someone is no guarantee of getting them and Maker knows I didn’t deserve you. Never been more surprised in my life than when you kissed _me_.”  Even now he still can’t believe that it happened. He can still hear the wonder in his voice, the awe that she picked _him_. That she loves him – or at least _had_ loved him – enough to pursue him despite his inconsistent attitude on the subject. Cullen says that she still loves him but he doesn’t believe it. Not entirely. Not after what he did. Not after all that has happened.

“You and Cullen both have that problem,” she muses, almost to herself as she turns to regard him. Her eyes are all but black in the moonlight, the rich depth of their color lost to the shifting shadows of the night around them. Only the very thin band of gold at the inner most ring of her iris is visible, his very own star gleaming to light his way. Thom has to swallow and look away, his eyes flicking away from her face and staring at the scarred trunk of tree over her shoulder. The situation is completely different but all he can think of is that night on the Storm Coast, crammed into a depression so small it couldn’t even properly be called a cave. The gold in her eyes had all he’d been able to see then too, perfect and shining below him.

“My lady?” He shivers beneath the warmth of her fingers against his face, inhaling sharply and holding it as she strokes her thumb along the line of his chin.

“Neither one of you can see what good men you are,” she whispers as she stares at him and he feels the words like a poisoned knife to the gut – a hot stinging pain that makes it impossible to draw a deep breath. That she feels that - that she _believes_ that of him even after all he has done takes his breath away. “Neither one of you believe you’re worthy of being loved. Which _baffles_ me to no end,” she mutters, scowling adorably as she looks up at him, “and is absolutely fucking ridiculous. You’re some of the best men I’ve ever known – and considering I’ve talked to half of Thedas at this point, my word is pretty much law on the matter,” she adds lightly but the look in her eyes is serious.

Thom catches her hand as she lowers it, holding her fingers loosely between his.  “I’m sorry,” he murmurs.

Her brow furrows. “For what? For… fucking void, Thom, you don’t have to apologize for feeling the way you feel! You…” Wide eyed and animated in the moonlight, simultaneously apologetic and exasperated as she fidgets beside him, her free hand a flurry of half made gestures.

Maker, he wants to kiss her so badly it hurts.

He wants to take her in his arms and ghost his lips across hers, wants to swallow the fluster of words spilling out of her mouth until they’re gone. He wants to take his time – to trace, to touch, to taste – to renew every faded memory.

He silences her with a gentle touch of his finger across her mouth instead and even that is almost too much.  Half of his nights he spends in her bed and still he is touch starved, hungering after her caress like a hound who is nothing more than skin stretched over sharp, jutting bones.

“No,” he corrects gently. “That’s not what I meant. I…” he swallows, hard, and reaches deep to find his balls. If he can step up onto a gallows and publically confess that he should be the one dangling from the rope he can apologize to the woman who saved him. “… I never apologized for leaving,” he finishes.

Catheryn stares at him, her face blanking of all emotion. It’s the look she uses for politicians, for merchants, for matters of diplomacy and judgement. He hates that look.

“You don’t have to apologize,” she finally acknowledges tightly as she looks away. Her fingers curl tightly in his grip though, clinging to the solitary point of touch as if she expects him to be ripped from her.

“The void I don’t,” he retorts harshly and she shudders on the other end of his hand. Gently he rubs his thumb over the underside of her wrist, pushing it gently against her pulse until he can feel it slow ever so slightly. Maker, though, it’s still pounding so fucking fast. “I am sorry,” he repeats more softly, enunciating each word with care. “Sorrier than I am for anything else in my life.”

“You don’t mean that,” she sighs wearily.

But he does. In a way he regrets it even more than Callier and he says so: honestly, firmly, and with every ounce of conviction he can muster.

Her mouth falls open. “You can’t…” But he does and she knows it. He can tell. He can hear it in her voice, can see it written all over her face. “Then _why_ did you do it?” she asks, broken and bewildered.

Tenderly he reaches out and tucks a stray wisp of hair behind her ear and gives the only answer that there is. “Because of you. When you found me – when you found _Blackwall_ – here I was… I was living in another man’s skin,” he explains as he looks out over the stretch of the Hinterlands laid before them. “I was alone because I deserved it, trying to atone for my sins without getting caught by them. When you shouted my name I was terrified that I had been.” He draws his thumb in slow, sure strokes over her skin. This time, though, it is for his reassurance and not hers.

“You didn’t run.” The _then_ goes unspoken and for that he is grateful.

“I couldn’t,” he admits with a shrug. “Ranier would have run. Rainier _did_. But Blackwall would have stayed and fought – so I fought. It helped that I was completely awestruck by you. We were already fighting by the time my brain caught up to what was happening and offered fleeing as an alternative.”

“...Awestruck?”

He laughs at a little at the utter confusion in her voice. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever been privileged to lay eyes on,” he glances over at her just in time to see her blush, the blood a dusky glow on her cheeks. “And then you spoke and for the first time in years…” he shakes his head. “Maker, I’m making a fucking mess of this. What you have to understand is that between the real Blackwall’s death and when you found me I was just going through the motions. I wanted to be a better man but I didn’t know _how_ , so I just did what I thought the real Blackwall would have done. I was trying but... When you asked… when you offered me a position in the Inquisition…that was the first fucking decision in years that I’d made because it was something I _wanted_ to do and not because it was merely something I _thought_ I should do. You had – _have,”_ he corrects with a small smile, “that effect on me. You make me want to do the right thing. Not to atone. Not to hide. Not ease my guilt. But because you make me want to be a better person. You make me want to be someone that is worthy to stand next to you day after day, to fight at your side. I fell in love with you almost instantly, you know,” he adds.

Beside him Catheryn stiffens as his words reach her ears, her hand convulsing in his own. “Thom…”

“I meant to tell you, that day on the Storm Coast. I took you to where Blackwall had died and I meant to come clean but then you found his badge and I just _couldn’t_. I was too much of a coward to look you in the eye and destroy everything you thought of me. I couldn’t bear to have you look at me like you look at all the other monsters we come across. And then you…” Thom shakes his head again, sharply enough that he can feel his teeth rattle around in his jaw.  “Maker, Catheryn, do you know what it does to a man to have you stand beside him and vow to face everything with him? It makes him feel invincible. It made _me_ feel like…”

“… like anything was possible,” she whispers, remembering.

Thom nods. “Exactly. But I needed to think – I needed to gather my courage – and then the darkspawn happened. And the cave,” he smiles and, Maker help him, so does she. It’s a soft, almost shy little thing that teases at the corner of her lips and makes the edges of her eyes crinkle. “It would have been so easy, so easy, to just continue on pretending – to remain as Blackwall forever – but how could I do that to you? Shackle you with a man who couldn’t even give you the honesty of his own name? So I asked for time, again. Watching you leave for the Exalted Plains without me was one of the worst moments of my life because I knew, I fucking _knew_ , that my cowardice was the only thing standing between me and everything I’d ever wanted.” His voice breaks on the final word and he pauses, shutting his eyes and forcing himself to breathe in and out in slow, steady exhalations. “I promised myself that I would tell you when you came back and I meant it… but then I found the report on Mornay’s capture and scheduled execution.” He can't stop the little strangled laugh that pulls at his throat as he adds, "You managed in two years what I had failed to accomplish in almost double that. You made me a better man. Rainier – I – may have been a bastard but I was a damned good Captain and Mornay had been my second in command. I couldn’t let him die. Not if I could save him.”

“Why didn’t you go to Leliana? Or Josephine? Or Cullen? Even if you hadn’t wanted to come to me,” and Maker, he can hear the hurt in her voice still over the knowledge that he had not wanted her help – she who wants nothing more out of life but to help those she cares for, “they would have helped you. Leliana probably even would have kept it a secret,” Catheryn acknowledges with a snort, not quite able to keep something bitter from edging her words.

“Because I couldn’t do that to you – to the Inquisition, to everything you had built,” he responds gently, resuming his caress of her wrist. It seems they both need it. “As Blackwall I was a fairly low-profile member of the Inner Circle. The details of your companions are known well enough that everyone knew you had a Grey Warden but they didn’t really know the details of who. I wanted him to just disappear without a fuss, to fade into the fucking background like he’d never existed.”

Catheryn swears.

“It would have been easy to make excuses, to spin some tale to the public that implied that I rejoined the Wardens,” Thom ignores her outrage and continues, staring steadfastly at the ground far below them. He doesn’t trust himself to look at her now, doesn’t know if he could take seeing whatever it is that is scrawled across her features. “Everyone would have assumed that I was with those that you pardoned at Adamant and _they_ would have assumed that I’d returned to Weisshaupt. There would have been no public scandal for the Inquisition. Mornay – and the rest of my men – would have been saved. From death, at least. And I would have finally owned up and paid for my crimes. Perhaps it wasn’t the best plan but it was a perfect one as far as I was concerned.”

Catheryn chokes at his side, her shoulders hunching away from the blows of his words. “Never,” she mutters desperately. “It was _never_ the perfect plan. Not for _me_.”

Thom shuts his eyes. “I know.” So much hurt… he knew he would cause it. He knew it would destroy her but he hoped… “You weren’t supposed to know. You weren’t supposed to get back from the Plains until it was all over.” A hitching, painful sob claws out of her throat, shoulders heaving as she simultaneously tries to wrench herself away and curl into his side. “I made a mistake. I thought…” he sighs. “I knew you had feelings for me but I thought you were still straddling that line between infatuation and love.” Maker, he had been a stupid bastard. Still probably is. It seems to be a trait that’s followed him through two identities so it shouldn’t be a shock if he’s still got it. He reaches out with his free hand and gently thumbs the tears from her cheeks, cupping the curve of her jawline in the palm of his hand. She leans into his touch, shutting her eyes as she presses herself against his skin.

“It was never an infatuation,” she mutters huskily.

“I know that now,” he returns, wiping away the fresh flush of tears and feeling every single one of them like a maul to the ribcage. If he’s being honest he knew it then too, he just didn’t want to admit it. Probably because he couldn’t even begin to understand it.

“Everyone… they read the reports, you know, about Redcliff and they hear the rumors that the Inquisitor has nightmares, and they…” Thom starts a little at the change of subject but she just shakes her head, ignoring the unspoken question on his lips and determinedly rambling on. “Everyone just assumes that I dream about how I’ve lost. They think I’m scared of Corypheus and the red lyrium and they’re right, of course. They’re fucking right. But that’s not what makes my heart stop in my chest, not what makes me wake up screaming until my throat is raw and I can taste blood in my mouth.” Catheryn stares at him, fixing him with the full, steady weight of her gaze, pinning him in place more effectively than a great sword driven through his foot. “I watched you _die_ in that future. You, Solas, Cullen, Leliana… everyone that was left.”

“I read the reports…” he begins, hoping to spare her the pain of reliving it.

“Not _everything_ made it into the _reports_ ,” she snaps with a little, hysterical sounding laugh.

Thom’s written enough reports himself that he doesn’t doubt it. Some shit you just don’t – _can’t_ \- write down. It’s too much cost for too little gain, which means that he knows whatever she’s about to say is going to hurt.

“I had to free you and Solas from those cells and know that you were already lost to the lyrium and Cullen…” she chokes on his name and that is all that Thom needs to know.

“He wasn’t dead when you found him.” If he closes his eyes he can visualize the terse handful of words scrawled on the report: _Commander Rutherford located nearby, expired from red lyrium growth._ It’s the only line in the whole document that mentions the Commander and it’s a lie.

“No, he wasn’t. He was when I left him though,” she admits, shrugging hopelessly with one shoulder.

Thom’s never possessed Cullen’s gift – the other man’s seemingly effortless ability to have entire conversations with Catheryn without saying a word – but he’s not completely brainless, either. In the report it is noted that Grand Enchanter Fiona had been overcome with red lyrium, the crystals growing in great shards from her body. The Inquisitor had granted her the mercy of quick death. If she had been willing to do that for someone that she doesn’t particularly like… Maker, he can see it in his head. She wouldn’t have let anyone else do it. Magic wasn’t necessarily a quick way to die so she would have borrowed a blade – his blade, Thom realizes with a sick lurch of his stomach. He knows himself well enough to know that, lyrium-addled or no, he would have handed over his sword the moment she fixed her dark brown gaze on his and held out her hand.

She would have done it and they would have watched and the only one that fucking _remembers_ is Dorian. Maker, no wonder the other mage looks after her so. The ex-Altus has always been a little reckless on the battlefield. Thom has always assumed it’s because he – as the _Evil Tevinter_ – feels the need to prove his loyalty. Loudly. And in grand style. Now he can’t help but wonder if instead of showing off Dorian has been quietly – well, as quietly as Dorian can manage -  doing his best to make sure his best friend never has to watch those she loves die again.

“…and then you and Solas…” she continues, the pained notes of her voice drawing him from his thoughts, “Well. Red lyrium won’t make you invincible but it certainly makes you hard to kill – and when you have nothing to live for anyway - I watched you both die a dozen times over before we reached Alexius. And then… then Corypheus came. I didn’t know who he was, he was just _the Elder One_ and I had to send you to fight him. To _die_ _again_ just to buy Dorian more time.  I saw him, you know. Just as I stepped into the rift I looked back and he was there in the doorway – some vague, lyrium infested nightmare.  Solas – what was left of him – was behind him on the floor. He was holding your head in one hand. Just your head. By the beard.”

“Maker, Catheryn…”

“And do you know what the worst thing was?” she asks and Thom shakes his head minutely, feeling absolutely sick at the idea that there is something _worse_. He doesn’t know why she is telling him all of this but he’s praying that she has a reason. That there is something _valid_ that is making her relive an experience that has haunted her for years. “There was absolutely nothing I could to do to stop it. I couldn’t save you. I couldn’t save Cullen. I couldn’t save Solas or Leliana. All this power and I was still powerless. I had to watch you _leave me_!”

“Fuck,” he breaths softly, the last two years of their life suddenly cast in a very different light.  He thinks of how she forced them to leave her at Haven. He remembers the single, heart stopping moment of tumbling off the walls of Adamant and meeting her gaze before everything burned green. He remembers how she looked when she disarmed the Grand Duchess and killed her in the middle of the Grand Ballroom with the woman’s own knife. He looks back on every mission, every fight they have undertaken and sees the barriers that snap over them, the lightning that picks enemies off their backs, the extra health potions, and the emergency vial of lyrium that she carries _just in case._ When he looks, Thom sees two years of Catheryn fighting a war on two fronts – of her trying to beat Corypheus and trying to make sure that every single one of the Inner Circle comes out of the experience alive.

“Maker’s fucking balls,” Thom swears again and pulls her into his lap. She’s shivering, quaking like a leaf as she burrows into his chest until her ear is pressed over his heart. “I’m sorry,” he whispers into her hair as he helps her shaking fingers find the pulse points on his wrists, lets her feel and hear the beating of his heart. “I’m so sorry, love.” He can see it, now that he knows exactly what he’s looking at, how every nuance of his plan mirrors the deepest fears of her heart. He can see that by carefully constructing a scenario that would leave as little scandal and public heartache as he could manage he unwittingly erected the walls of her own nightmares around her.

Maker, his stupidity hasn’t just followed him into this newest reincarnation but it seems to have multiplied somewhere along the way.

 _You’re a fucking bastard to not see it sooner_ , he scolds himself even as he breaks his apology to ask, “Will you ever be able to forgive me?” He’s not holding his breath on the matter. Maker knows he doesn’t deserve it.

Catheryn snuffles loudly against his chest, her words muffled by layers of clothing and light armor. “Do you still want to die?”

Thom hadn’t thought it possible for his stomach to drop any lower. He is wrong. Is that what she thinks of him? “I accepted it because it was what would be required for my crimes. It wasn’t…”

“But you…” she takes a deep breath, her entire torso heaving where it is pressed against his chest. “You said that you wanted it all to _end_.”

He doesn’t have to think hard to remember saying that. The day of his formal trial in the Great Hall is etched into his memory. Even now, just remembering the words he spoke, he can feel that bone-deep exhaustion pulling at his bones – the desire to just have it _done_ and over with, one way or another. “I was tired of living a lie,” Thom explains softly. “I was tired of running. I was tired of people dying because I was too much a coward to wear my own name. I was ready for that to be over. I had accepted that such a thing would mean my execution but that doesn’t mean that I… I never _wanted_ to die,” he promises fiercely. “I never wanted to leave you.”

“But then what do you want?”

Gently, he pulls Catheryn away from  his chest and sets her forward enough on his legs that he can get a good look at her face. The sight, as always, takes his breath away. Even with tear tracks on her cheeks and eyes swollen from crying she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. “You,” he answers simply. “Whatever you want. Whatever you will give me.”

Catheryn makes a sound of frustration. “Fuck that,” she growls, “you and Cullen both… forget what I might want for a moment. My desires aren’t the only ones that matter!”

Thom smiles and doesn’t look away. “They are to us.”

She swears impressively and drags a hand down her face. “This. _This_ has got to fucking stop! Whatever _this_ is or could be or… fuck it. It will never work if neither one of you wont actually communicate with me.” She scowls at him and digs her fingers into his arm so tightly that he can feel it through the quilted armor he’d thrown on after washing off. “So I’m asking you, Thom, _what do you want_?”

“You,” he whispers again because there is no other answer. Ignoring her annoyed huff he cups her face in his hands, framing the fine lines of her features with the scarred and callused flesh of his fingers. “I look at what you have with Cullen – what you’ve _always_ had with Cullen – and it is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen between two people. I don’t want to destroy that. Ever. But I _want_ it. I want it so badly I can't breathe. Can't think. I want it with you. I want to talk with you again. To laugh. To play wicked grace. To fight at your side and guard your back. To grumble when you conscript me into weeding the herb garden with you but secretly loving it because your ass looks fantastic bent over like that and your eyes sparkle like diamonds when you’ve got your hands in the dirt.” He smiles at the shocked little laugh that his words pull from her. She can laugh all she wants - it's still true.

“I want you in my arms and in my bed. I want to have you every single chance I get because a second without your touch is a second too long. And despite what earlier, ill-thought words on my part may have led you to believe, I want to stand up before the Maker and every other fucking person in Thedas and make you my _wife_. I want to spend my free time carving toys and cradles and rocking horses but I want them to be for _our_ children – for little hordes of chocolate eyed boys and curly haired girls. I want you for every single miserable, happy, chaotic minute of the rest of my life. _That_ , Catheryn, is what I want.”

The words hang between them, a gauntlet of desire, as his breath heaves in his chest like a fucking racehorse who has led the charge up and down all the dunes in the Western Approach. Even his hands are shaking, trembling as his fingers brush the hair out of her face.

“ _Oh_ ,” she finally whispers as she stares at him, eyes and mouth wide open in surprise.

“I love you.” It’s the first time he’s ever said the words directly. He’s implied them a dozen times – a hundred, even – but this is the first time they have ever actually come out of his mouth. It is something he has regretted since the moment he stood up from his bed and laid down Blackwall’s badge. Catheryn inhales sharply, the unmistakable glimmer of unshed tears beading along her eyelashes. “I _love_ you,” he repeats gruffly. “And I will take whatever of yourself you will give me. If means that I am nothing more than a soldier for you cause then I will do that. If it means that I share a bed with Cullen and that some of those children have golden curls and golden eyes then I will count myself a lucky and honored man.”

She doesn’t believe him. She _wants_ to – that’s clear enough on her face – but she doesn’t. Not yet. He doesn’t blame her. He’s had three months and the help of another person to wrap his head around the idea and it still stuns him on a daily basis that he is not only considering such an option but actively pursuing it. If she needs that same amount of time or longer to believe that they are sincere then they will wait.

Abruptly Catheryn laughs, shaking her head as she shifts in his lap. “Do you know,” she asks as a familiar wry grin, its edges bright with affection, lights up her face, “when I first realized that I would fall hopelessly and irreversibly in love with you?

Thom, afraid to do more than simply breathe, manages to shake his head just a little as she covers his hands with hers and leans forward. Her breath is hot against his lips and in his nose as she presses their foreheads together and he can’t stop himself from inhaling deeply. She smells as she always has – a heady blend of elfroot and ozone tempered by the softer, sweeter scents of lavender and dawn lotus.

“ _What good can one Grey Warden do_?” she whispers, the words dancing across the surface of his skin.

“ _Save the fucking world_ ,” he responds, smiling at the memory. Perhaps the most pivotal moment of his life, when he chose to follow this beautiful, somewhat frightening woman out of the safety of anonymity. “I’m not a Grey Warden, my lady, as you are well aware but if you’ll have me I’ll gladly help you save the world.”

Catheryn nods against the brush of his beard. “ _Yes_. Thom… it… it would be an honor and a pleasure.”

He’s spent more time than he should wondering what his name, his real name, would sound thusly on her lips – when her voice is tender and iron and charged with emotion. Turns out it is the sweetest damn sound in the world and he can’t do anything but tilt her face just that that final fraction of an inch and kiss her, soft and chaste but filled with the longing and hope of a lifetime.

 

* * *

 

It’s easy to be patient. It’s the easiest thing in the world. It’s easy when she smiles at him, a little half-smile that’s soft and amazed, when she thinks that no one is looking.

…Varric. Varric is looking. He’s already smirked at Thom five times and winked broadly – and that’s just this morning. If the last several days are any indication he’ll move on to suggestive eyebrow wriggling and casual innuendo before the end of the day. If their recent expedition didn’t make him feel badly for the dwarf he’d be quite open to simply shoving his friend off the side of the mountain as they climb the twisting roads up the Frostbacks.

It’s easy to look up at Skyhold and for the first time in months be filled with a sense of homecoming. Thom doesn’t know exactly is going to happen next but that’s alright. As long as the woman riding beside him is there he doesn’t think it will matter much. Apparently Catheryn must be thinking something similar because she reaches out as they pass beneath the portcullis and squeezes his forearm.

“Inquisitor!” Cullen’s voice, deep and in full blown Commander mode booms out over the small crowd braving the falling snow to welcome the Inquisitor home.

Catheryn’s head turns instantly, swiveling like a hound suddenly catching scent. “Commander!” she greets but the smile on her face fades as soon as she gets a good look at his face. Cullen is a man possessed, his mouth set in a thin line as he strides across the courtyard. “Cullen?” she asks worriedly, “What is it?”

The Commander doesn’t even wait for her to finish dismounting. He simply shoves a small slip of parchment into her hands, neatly side-stepping around the Fiend’s attempt to snap at him in what passes for friendly greeting. “We’ve found him,” he bares his teeth in a feral grin of triumph as he looks up at her. “Samson is at an old Shrine of Dumat in north Orlais.”

The grin that spreads across Catheryn’s lips as she scans the brief missive is nothing short of predatory.

Wordlessly she turns and looks at him and he smiles as well. She doesn’t even have to ask. “For as long as you’ll have me,” he reminds her.

“I’m coming with you,” Cullen adds fiercely, his voice booking no room for argument.

“There will likely be red lyrium,” she says and there’s something important there, something that Thom doesn’t catch. It passes between them, making Cullen flinch and rub at the back of his neck so hard he can see the knuckles of the other man’s hand whiten as he exhales shakily.

“I know,” he acknowledge simply.

Catheryn stares down at him, searching his face for a long moment before she nods. “Alright then. I can leave in an hour. Is that enough time for you to get ready?”

The Commander grunts in amusement. “I’ve had my bags packed since this message arrived yesterday.”

“Fair enough. Grab Solas and Cole for me, I’ll go check in with Leliana and Josephine. And Cullen?”

The other man turns back, his arms unconsciously coming up to catch her as she slides from the draclisk’s back. “Yes, Inquisitor?”

“I love you,” she murmurs and ghosts her lips across his. Cullen hugs her closer, hitching her legs up around his waist so that he can kiss her properly, his hands making a mess of her hair.

Vaguely, he’s aware of the fact that Cassandra is looking at him oddly and that Varric is whistling loudly in the distance but it’s easy to ignore them. Easy, because all he can feel is the bright spark in his chest, small and fierce and burning so blighted hot that he can feel his blood racing beneath his skin. Easy, because he can still feel the ghost of her lips across his.

Easy, because for the first time in half a year it doesn’t feel like someone is twisting a dull knife between his ribs.

Thom takes a deep breath and smiles.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are at the end of the first official "slice".  
> Next up is a one-shot that originally took place between chapters 1 and 2 of this fic but, in the end, didn't really fit with the rest of everything (but is still important). That will be posted next Monday (November 21st) and will be titled _Some Spots Don't Wash Away_.  
>  Following that will be the next slice, _Call It A Draw_ and the exact start date will be announced next week. (It depends entirely on how much writing I get done _this_ week... so make an offering to the writing gods for me, lol.)


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